[HN Gopher] A marriage proposal spoken in office jargon
___________________________________________________________________
A marriage proposal spoken in office jargon
Author : ohjeez
Score : 333 points
Date : 2025-01-15 18:12 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.mcsweeneys.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.mcsweeneys.net)
| ashton314 wrote:
| See also "Mission Statement" by Weird Al:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4
| DesiLurker wrote:
| here is a more direct proposal to contrast:
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3GlKd5DOJLE
| xxs wrote:
| That's proper corporate speak, not so much office jargon. One
| note: to table in the UK means to put it to vote/address, rather
| than "put it under the rug"
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contronym
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| I noticed 'low hanging fruit' here is used differently than I'm
| used to. Where I've worked it always meant 'a task that is easy
| to get done'
| kelnos wrote:
| Not just easy to get done, but has a positive impact greater
| than you'd expect based on how easy it is to get done.
| erinaceousjones wrote:
| Huh, I'm in the UK and certainly every time one of my workmates
| has said "to table" something it's meant "let's stop fucking
| talking about this now"
| WorldMaker wrote:
| In Robert's Rules (of Parliament Procedure), which are kind of
| the "base level" in US corporate politics, "to table" means to
| "send [back] to committee" in part coming from the idea of
| physically collecting all the debate notes so far and setting
| them aside on a table for the committee to collect to take to
| their next meeting in order to (try to) address concerns.
|
| In Robert's Rules to address something is to "motion" it, with
| "call to vote" being a common sub-type of a motion to make.
| (Generally addressed to "the chair" of the meeting, or asking
| for wider debate from "the floor", so sometimes something might
| be "chaired" or "floored" to imply a vote/address, but usually
| "motion".)
|
| The default vote in Robert's Rules is a show of hands or a
| verbal "aye"/"nay"/"abstain". It takes extra work to motion for
| a paper or ballot vote. I'm curious if the UK jargon for
| "table" is as much a difference/switch in that default among UK
| parliamentary procedure? More paper votes would involve more
| tables, if that were the case, so that would maybe explain
| things.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| Take this offline, you two
| jbs789 wrote:
| After we double click
| rowenaluk wrote:
| hahahaha. so good. so terrible.
| jckahn wrote:
| If you don't get the joke, you may be a product manager
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| See also: A PowerPoint Proposal by Don McMillan:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGiePuNFXwY
| grumpwagon wrote:
| Another classic in this genre:
| https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/a-deep-dive-to-...
| ziddoap wrote:
| Hadn't seen this one before, it's great.
|
| > _As 6:30 P.M. rolled around, she felt sick in the pit of her
| stomach, like when she looked at a sentence that didn't contain
| an acronym._
| setgree wrote:
| in a slightly different vein:
| https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/i-work-from-hom...
|
| > OPERATOR: O.K., Robert, you understand that what you just
| described isn't really lunch, right?
|
| > ROBERT: It is lunch. When there are no rules, it is lunch,
| Cherise!
|
| > OPERATOR: Did you at any point dip the green peppers in the
| peach yogurt?
|
| > ROBERT: Probably. Sorry.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| >dip the green peppers in the peach yogurt
|
| Reminds me of that Bloodhound Gang song
| epiccoleman wrote:
| Woof, this one hit a little too close to home
| alonsonic wrote:
| This is incredible. The quality of the writing is on another
| level, it's not just about throwing corporate jargon but
| weaving it through a nicely written piece. Thank you for
| sharing, looking forward to reading more comments from you.
|
| Regards, AA
| delegate wrote:
| Start with the 'Wedding' epic in Jira. Add a few spikes to figure
| out the details and bring those into the current sprint.
| ramon156 wrote:
| Get a slack channel you two
| nine_k wrote:
| You mean, they did not book that conference room?
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I have a long-time friend who, after years in fintech, now
| sometimes speaks this way unironically in non-work situations. I
| mean, I still think he's a good guy overall but when he
| recommends the DND party splits up to maximize ROI on a spell
| rather than just say "let's split up", it does make me cringe.
| macinjosh wrote:
| everyone knows you must maximize spellholder value
| kfarr wrote:
| It's your magiciary duty
| eismcc wrote:
| I'm ded
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| The swarm takes 5 rightsizing damage.
| leeter wrote:
| This makes me want to have someone make a "Consultomancer"
| as a class just to read the spell descriptions.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| There's a whole TTRPG called "Murders & Acquisitions" as
| a possible option to scratch that itch.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Hah fantastic. I need to use this somewhere.
| bentcorner wrote:
| > _maximize spellholder value_
|
| This is such a magnificent phrase and I don't think it will
| ever get enough credit
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's actually a useful device when you like to pull an analogy.
| Instead of explaining the whole idea, you throw a jargon and
| everyone constructs the rest in their head and understand it
| and know how to work with it. The whole point of jargon is to
| have precise definitions, so it works as a rails and
| compression for ideas.
| JackFr wrote:
| > The whole point of jargon is to have precise definitions
|
| Well, not always. Per Webster:
|
| 1: the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a
| special activity or group
|
| 2: obscure and often pretentious language marked by
| circumlocutions and long words
|
| It would be great if it were only (1) but I'd often (2)
| ffsm8 wrote:
| These 1 and 2 are pretty much always apply at the same
| time.
|
| Wherever 1 or 2 applies just depends on how used you're to
| the usage of said jargon.
| monitorlizard wrote:
| Jargon feels like 1 for the ingroup and 2 for the outgroup.
| mrtksn wrote:
| These are some effects of a jargon but the reason for its
| existence is precision. You learn it in an institution and
| then you are on the same page and there's no ambiguity over
| its meaning. Using jargon with a layperson is useless and
| could be stupid or pretentious.
| jonahx wrote:
| > but the reason for its existence is precision
|
| In some cases yes, but the majority of the time jargon is
| _primarily_ used as a shibboleth to establish group
| identity, camaraderie, and a sense of exclusivity.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I don't know why is this obsession over jargon. I know
| the cliche, it's not true at all except when you misuse
| it. Maybe can be used as part of a fraud or some power
| move or something like that but its intended use case is
| a shortcut to predefined ideas. It may have side effects
| but that doesn't mean that those side effects are the
| reason to exist.
| jonahx wrote:
| I am making an empirical statement. The majority of its
| actual use in life is to achieve social/political ends,
| not to improve communication. If you want to say the
| majority of its use is _misuse_ , fine. But the misuse is
| intentional.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I disagree entirely, jargon use is to help us from
| keeping defining things so we can move on to the next
| problem. How do you even use "unsprung weight" or
| "distributed cache" for social or political ends? Maybe
| it can be used at some cringe encounter with layperson
| but that's not at all what jargon is used for.
| jonahx wrote:
| Something like "distributed cache" is valid jargon. I
| already conceded that it _can_ be useful. But the
| majority of it (by raw numbers) is the kind of stuff of
| the OP is lampooning -- business and office jargon. Of
| course there is plenty of scientific and mathematical
| jargon that 's legitimate shorthand.
|
| Even there, however, the line blurs. That is, you have
| terms with legitimate use that were poorly chosen.
| Sometimes the poor choice is historical accident, but
| often it's motivated by a desire to sound more impressive
| and complicated that it is. Something like "applicative
| functor" might fall into this category.
| kelnos wrote:
| I absolutely agree that some people use jargon as a
| gatekeeping device or an in-group detector, and that's
| lame.
|
| But jargon does have value in communication where you
| know the person you're talking to understands it at the
| level you do. Jargon, when used well, can let you be
| simultaneously more precise and more terse.
|
| Think about times you've sent email or even just chat
| messages to different professional audiences. You're
| probably going to use different language when talking to
| a manager vs. a sales person vs. an engineer. I'm not
| talking about level of formality; the actual language you
| use to describe the topic at hand will change. Some of
| that will be a matter of the level of detail you provide,
| but some of it will likely include jargon (when you're
| conversing with someone in the same "group" as you), and
| you might not even realize it.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Jargon like that in the link makes the message less precise
| and more meaningless, in my view.
|
| Just simply state what you mean. Let the other person ask
| questions if they need clarification.
| mrtksn wrote:
| That's good when you explain something technical to a
| layman, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about
| explaining non-technical issue to a technical person using
| jargon for analogy.
|
| For example you can use P2P to explain how some gossip
| spread or you can say that your relationship with SO is
| like UDP recently.
| luke-stanley wrote:
| So it's low latency and fast but in some contexts,
| firewalled?
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's like can't tell if she heard you
| jonahx wrote:
| How is "like UDP" clearer than just saying that?
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's not clearer, it's deeper. It implies a state and
| creates an image in the listeners mind. You can throw it
| casually when explaining something and your audience now
| has an image in their head so you can explain the actual
| thing you are after.
|
| Jargons are shortcuts to pre-agreed ideas. Just a tool.
| jonahx wrote:
| In this case, I assure you it does not add depth,
| clarity, images. You're just using it as a kind of in-
| group joke.
| mrtksn wrote:
| It means that you are not the intended audience because
| you know too much or too little about UDP.
|
| Once I had a physicist friend freak out over my use of
| "exponential" to loosely explain something because he
| instantly began thinking about edge cases and obviously
| using "logarithmic" would have been more precise. We were
| not on the same page with the jargon, but then again I
| guess it requires social skills too so that you can pick
| where the analogy starts and ends.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| My biggest pet peeve is when people use "exponential" to
| describe an increase defined by two points (i.e.
| "Americans are anticipated to consume exponentially more
| cookies in 2025 than they did in 2024"). Fully
| meaningless.
| kelnos wrote:
| I agree: it's absolutely an in-group joke. Maybe not
| _joke_ , but a cutesy in-group way of expressing
| something.
|
| Certainly someone who gets it will, well, get it. But in
| general it seems like a lot of effort in most cases to
| gauge whether or not the recipient will understand at the
| level you hope. Even the UDP example could be
| misunderstood by someone who is well-versed. Unreliable?
| A good low-level thing to build stuff on top of? These
| are both plausible meanings, but would convey very
| different things.
|
| Better to just use clear language.
| groby_b wrote:
| I mean, if you describe a relationship in terms of a
| protocol, sure, you're giving an interesting signal about
| the relationship, but probably not what you intended to
| say.
| marky1991 wrote:
| I think the udp example is a counterexample personally.
|
| "Hmm udp, so ...unreliable and...hmm...but high
| throughput?...hm, good to build stuff on top of?"
|
| I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, yet I know
| exactly what udp is.
|
| If you just meant "unreliable", how was this better than
| just saying that?
| mrtksn wrote:
| It means that we are not on the same page with that and
| should not be used. With jargon, audience is everything.
|
| Also, you use it in context. The jargon becomes
| illustrative for the analogy, not precise definition.
| After all, human can't have UDP connection.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _If you just meant "unreliable", how was this better
| than just saying that?_
|
| It's not. Well, if the person you're talking to happens
| to get the intended meaning immediately, it's a cute in-
| joke. To me, that's the only real (dubious) benefit.
| Terr_ wrote:
| There is no single "just simply" though. All communication
| is based on an (inherently fallible) estimate of the
| recipient's mental-state, priorities, and knowledge-base.
|
| For example, "I would like one head of lettuce" is a kind
| of jargon-lite for "I would like one portion of the fully-
| grown plant known as lettuce which is found above-ground as
| a connected unit in nature." Which one leads to a "simpler"
| exchange will depend on your assumptions about the
| recipient.
| kelnos wrote:
| Except that "one head of lettuce" is a widely-known
| "measure" that most people are going to understand.
|
| Most of this business-speak jargon is incomprehensible to
| people who haven't heard it before in the workplace. It
| seems "normal" to people like us here on HN because most
| of us have interacted with these sorts of business types
| (or are even one of them), but I would guess that most of
| the people who know what a head of lettuce represents
| would have no idea what ROI or noun-form "solve" means.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I never said the marriage satire was normal.
|
| Just that "simple" is deceptive, non-universal, and
| sometimes contradictory.
| bitwize wrote:
| Office jargon in particular fulfills a social signalling role
| rather than a clear communication role. It's intended to tell
| upper management: "I'm one of you guys, please look kindly
| upon me and maybe promote me!" But there's a dynamic similar
| to that of "U" English vs. "non-U English"[0], as upper
| management is more likely to say things like "Just get the
| fucking thing shipped. Our business depends on it."
|
| [0] It turns out that in England, upper-class aspirants are
| likely to use posher phrases and idioms than actual upper-
| class people, as the latter are aware of their own and
| others' social status and have no need for verbal
| affectations to communicate it. See:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English
| holtkam2 wrote:
| Yeah and an "artifact" of that "compression" is the "signal"
| that "you're a dork"
| mrtksn wrote:
| Jargon should be used only with the appropriate audience,
| obviously.
| pastaguy1 wrote:
| Jargon is everywhere but office jargon is its own sub genre.
|
| For office jargon, it's maybe not a practical matter, but I
| could see a friend being a little put off by someone speaking
| in office jargon to them. Office jargon is sort of impersonal
| by design
| drewcoo wrote:
| Jargon is as much about social signaling as anything else.
|
| Consider Cockney Rhyming Slang, which is intended to be
| insider-only speech.
|
| Consider the rise and then mass-adoption of Valley Girl.
| mrtksn wrote:
| IMHO office jargon is just as useful but because it's not
| technical its harder to adjust.
|
| >Office jargon is sort of impersonal by design
|
| That's one of it's functions. Instead of going over each
| time that the thing happening isn't personal and shouldn't
| be taken as such, you can utilize the jargon to keep it
| clean. After all, it's just a job where everyone tries to
| play their role to produce something. It hurts much more
| badly if you confuse the office work for a social
| interaction and things don't pan out at some point.
| PakistaniDenzel wrote:
| it only works with other white collar people who have heard
| the same jargon, normal people in the real world just won't
| understand what you're saying, so it's just bad communication
| mrtksn wrote:
| That's right, with jargons the audience is the key.
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah, and then you sound like a jargoff.
| ozten wrote:
| At least post-mortems are filled with dead carcass.
| a12k wrote:
| Is ROI pronounced "roy" or "are oh eye"?
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| Actually it's "uh-voyd youz-ing in so-shul si-tu-a-shuns"
| HWR_14 wrote:
| "are oh eye"
| CornishFlameHen wrote:
| "wah"
| dredmorbius wrote:
| est mort
| lr4444lr wrote:
| I un-ironically do that too in my personal relationships after
| many years in start-ups.
|
| Sorry if it's offensive!
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I think ROI is getting into standard vernacular. I've had
| someone use the term in the bedroom regarding certain
| positions.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| It's all fun and games until they bring out the scrum board
| stevenAthompson wrote:
| I'm not sure I'm Agile enough for that.
| ericmcer wrote:
| This happens to engineers too, it sucks. I say throughput way
| too often in casual conversation.
| mrandish wrote:
| I recently retired early from a large, F100 valley tech company
| and there are a few things I miss. But this is definitely
| something I will never miss!
| throw7 wrote:
| I imagined Gary as Ira Glass and Cindy as Jen Psaki. I could make
| it only about halfway before I threw up a little.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Here's a classic: https://professionalsuperhero.com
| remoquete wrote:
| It reads like a script from Succession.
| storf45 wrote:
| Sounds like a pair of Corporate SEALs!
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUtL6IS7wcY
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Reminds me of a George Saunders story, though it's missing the
| horror element.
| mbowcut2 wrote:
| oh, I think the horror element is there.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Really? Nobody is getting kicked to death.
| EGreg wrote:
| I thought they were going to show this:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-yGUSRdNG4
| dredmorbius wrote:
| That's what first came to mind as well.
|
| For those not familiar / context, _NewsRadio_ , Negotiation,
| S2E8 1995:
|
| <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0660208/quotes/>
|
| <https://breezewiki.pussthecat.org/newsradio/wiki/Negotiation>
| carimura wrote:
| Solid but could have double-clicked on Excel and Powerpoint more
| to complete the roadmap.
| uptownhr wrote:
| GARY: Hey Cindy, remember last week when we were debugging that
| system design issue?
|
| CINDY: Yeah, we got some pretty elegant solutions out of that
| sprint.
|
| GARY: Exactly. That got me thinking: our relationship feels like
| a system that's not just functional--it's optimized.
|
| CINDY: Oh? I'd like to hear your use case for that.
|
| GARY: Well, I've run some simulations, and the output is
| consistent. You're my primary key, Cindy. The stability and
| scalability of our relationship are off the charts.
|
| CINDY: That's a strong endorsement, Gary. I've been analyzing our
| feedback loops, and I feel the same way. You've really reduced my
| latency and maximized my throughput.
|
| GARY: So I figured it's time to push to production. In addition
| to all the features we've developed, I'd like to add one more.
| (He takes a knee and pulls out a ring.) Cindy, will you marry me?
|
| CINDY: I will, Gary! This takes our architecture to the next
| level.
|
| GARY: Marriage is a big commit, but I think we've got the
| bandwidth to make it work.
|
| CINDY: Absolutely. But we need to stay agile, especially during
| our onboarding phase.
|
| GARY: Agreed. I'll make sure to stay in sync during our sprints.
|
| CINDY: Good. Because I have one non-negotiable: we need to
| maintain a clean codebase.
|
| GARY: Let's unpack that.
|
| CINDY: My last relationship had too many tech debts. Every time I
| tried to refactor, there was pushback. It was impossible to
| iterate.
|
| GARY: Sounds like a monolithic mess.
|
| CINDY: It was. But with you, it's different. You're modular,
| efficient, and your logic is rock-solid. I just want to make sure
| we keep things lightweight and maintainable.
|
| GARY: I couldn't agree more. We'll keep our dependencies up-to-
| date and document everything thoroughly.
|
| CINDY: Perfect. Let's set up a shared repository to start
| planning our roadmap.
|
| GARY: Done. I'll draft an RFC tonight so we can align on our
| deliverables.
|
| CINDY: Great. Just flag me if you hit any blockers.
|
| GARY: Will do. And Cindy? Thank you for being my forever stack
| overflow.
|
| CINDY: And thank you for being the solution to all my edge cases.
| frereubu wrote:
| C'mon, don't just paste the content into the comments. The site
| doesn't have a paywall and from what I can see with a fresh
| browser window without ad blocker turned on there's no adverts
| aside from a request for subscriptions / becoming a patron.
| las_balas_tres wrote:
| That's not the original content on the site
| rkagerer wrote:
| It's not the linked article content. It's an even more
| audience-tailored version that I assume they made up, for our
| amusement.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| I have queries and doubts on the proposed union. See attached
| ticket. Please do the needful.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Ticket includes one (1) proposal of conjugal union. Action
| this.
| koolba wrote:
| You joke, but I know an actual couple that has a "family" Jira
| instance. They have tickets for household todo items like
| "Paint fence".
|
| I'm not sure about performance reporting but I think overall
| velocity has gone down despite their team size growing in
| recent years. I think the new members aren't contributing much
| yet in the way of story points.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Does that couple also work at the same company as product
| managers?
| hokumguru wrote:
| I find in this situation that new member onboarding can
| unfortunately take years
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I worked with a sysadmin that did this for his kids, and even
| moved chore assignments around automatically based on grades
| (which he scraped from some school portal). Get a D and
| you'll have to do your sister's chores!
| kmoser wrote:
| Brilliant! But two phrases I was hoping to see weren't there:
| "reach out" and "embrace."
| Applejinx wrote:
| That would be subsequent to presenting a clearer ROI case
| across foreseeable quarters
| jbl0ndie wrote:
| This is ripe for a Krazam adaptation.
|
| https://youtu.be/1RAMRukKqQg?si=CrRUbA3Ktsm5v7Kk
| the_af wrote:
| This is one of those Krazam clips I simply must watch again
| every time someone links to it.
|
| Another is the one about Omega Star (whose team _still_ haven
| 't got their shit together and implemented ISO dates like they
| said they would!).
| the_af wrote:
| It's funny, but it sounds more like corporate/management speak
| than office jargon.
|
| Employees, when no managers are present, seldom talk to each
| other like this. Sometimes, the way we actually speak to each
| other, would get us fired if someone from management was
| eavesdropping.
| bitwize wrote:
| I worked at a place where line employees talked like this to
| each other all the time. It was maddening. In particular,
| whenever the word "use" might be used, everybody at this
| company used the word "leverage" instead. They leveraged a
| piece of toilet paper to wipe their ass with. Madness! I felt
| like I was from space, like, am I the only one who sees how
| silly this is?
|
| But again, this sort of jargon serves a social signalling
| function. It's metacommunication, not first-order
| communication. It's intended to suggest "I'm a true and honest
| member of the business class and should be taken seriously in
| business affairs."
| bilalq wrote:
| I'd like to think I minimize the bleedover of
| corporate/profession-related speech into my daily life, but
| "orthogonal" and "non-trivial" were just not a standard part of
| my vocabulary before college. Over a decade later, I find myself
| saying them a lot.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > I'd like to think I minimize the bleedover of
| corporate/profession-related speech into my daily life, but
| "orthogonal" and "non-trivial" were just not a standard part of
| my vocabulary before college. Over a decade later, I find
| myself saying them a lot.
|
| As a mathematician, both of those terms are common in my
| technical and, therefore, everyday speech. If it helps, feel
| free to think of yourself, not as using corporate speech, but
| as using technical mathematical terms.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| That sounds more like maths jargon that has bled into office
| speak (to my delight, but I'm a mathematician).
| cafeinux wrote:
| Those are words I use a lot and I was starting to wonder if I
| the office jargon was bleeding too much on my personal life.
| Then I read your comment and realised I started using them
| after attending a math course at the University. I loved my
| teacher. Thanks for the memories.
| pempem wrote:
| Ways to say: 1. "that's not what we're talking about" and 2.
| "this is fucking important you idiot"
|
| are always valuable :D
| treetalker wrote:
| The use of "orthogonal" is now common in SCOTUS oral arguments,
| both from the practitioners and the justices. Not infrequent in
| the intermediate appellate courts either. I do an imaginary eye
| roll whenever I hear it in those contexts.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Why? The entire point of a court case is to settle an
| argument over a specific case or controversy. So if something
| is orthogonal or tangential (pick your math metaphor), that
| means something.
| bitwize wrote:
| That makes me wary. As any mathematician knows, "trivial" means
| solvable. "Nontrivial" means no one has solved it yet, but no
| one knows any good reason why it _shouldn 't_ be solvable in
| principle. And "decidedly nontrivial" means no one has a
| fucking clue whether it's solvable or not; best not try, unless
| you're Terence Tao or somebody, then... maybe.
|
| So if I were your boss and you came to me casually describing a
| problem as "nontrivial" I'd be like... "so is the time frame
| gonna be years or decades?"
| pc86 wrote:
| "Trivial" in software means easy. So "non-trivial" just means
| not easy. As such whether or not something actually is
| trivial or not will vary person to person.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| That's pretty much exactly what it means in software too? A
| trivial task is one that you think you know how to do. A
| nontrivial problem is one which sounds like it should be
| doable, but you don't immediately know what steps will be
| required, and until you look into it further it may take
| anywhere from days to decades.
| sporkland wrote:
| Adjacent News Radio Marriage Proposal:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-yGUSRdNG4
| shagie wrote:
| I was reminded of that when reading, went to look it up on
| Youtube, clicked share, came back here to see if anyone had
| left a comment... "search news radio" yep... glance at the
| query... 'v=y-y...' Yep.
|
| I highly recommend this clip.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| Solves, asks, learnings.
|
| It was a surprise when I discovered just how much negativity and
| frustration wells up in me when I see verbs turn into nouns when
| there are already perfectly serviceable nouns available.
|
| I am motivated to passive aggressively retaliate by turning even
| more verbs into unnecessary nouns: seeings, helpings,
| deliverings, discussings, respondings.
| shagie wrote:
| Calvin and Hobbes - January 25, 1993
| https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25
|
| Calvin: I like to verb words.
|
| Hobbes: What?
|
| Calvin: I like to verb words I take nouns and adjectives and
| use them as verbs. Remember When "Access" was a thing? Now it's
| something you _do_. It got verbed.
|
| Calvin: Verbing weirds language.
|
| Hobbes: Maybe we can eventually make language a complete
| impediment to understanding.
| bitwize wrote:
| Wow, really impactful share! I feel like I got some great take-
| aways and learnings from this.
| patrickmay wrote:
| I threw up in my mouth a little.
| tibbon wrote:
| "I had a visceral reaction that was less than favorable"
| davidw wrote:
| [ Runs off screaming into the woods ]
| jader201 wrote:
| I think I could be alone, but one of my biggest office-speak pet
| peeves is using verbs as nouns.
|
| Like "ask" (I hear this one all the time), "(value) add", and
| "solve" (used in this article - I cringed).
|
| I see this a lot on HN too, so again, many others here will
| obviously not agree. But I'll intentionally use "request" or
| "question" over "ask" just in protest.
|
| I know the English language has been using some verbs as nouns
| for millennia, but there are particular ones (like the ones
| above) that I mostly hear at the office (or outside the office,
| but spoken by "office folk"), and it's definitely an annoy.
|
| EDIT: Turns out I'm not alone. Thanks for the validate.
| savanaly wrote:
| I find that happens to me too (getting annoyed), but it's a
| good reminder to introspect when it happens. Clearly, there's
| nothing objectively wrong with actually using these words in
| their new meanings-- they're completely serviceable in their
| new usages, and clear too. There's some degree to which all
| people get annoyed with language changing and feel a
| conservative impulse to put a stop to it, but the annoyance
| with office jargon in particular seems to go beyond that. The
| source of our annoyance is thus revealed to be something else.
| I have a feeling it comes back to, like so many things, status
| games. Someone using new terminology that was just invented is
| (probably incidentally) asserting some kind of status one-
| upsmanship over you, demonstrating in passing they are more
| familiar with cultural norms. I wonder if my annoyance is
| actually stemming from insecurity that the other person is
| exactly right-- I _am_ falling behind in the invisible status
| games. I can either accept my loss, try to adapt to it by using
| it myself, or remind myself of how little I really care about
| these status games.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Most of these words seem to be intentionally ineloquent. It's
| almost as though they were invented or first used by someone
| who is rich but illiterate. Or that the words were invented
| specifically to be "accessible" in some way.
|
| Imagine getting a degree in English and then learning as an
| adult that an "ask" is modern jargon for a request, that a
| "learning" is a lesson, and an "add" is a differentiator.
| Business English always seems to involve a narrowing of the
| lexicon.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think what grates on me the most -- deservedly or not -- is
| that these particular words only end up being used this way
| in "business speak". I find business-type people to be
| profoundly annoying (shallow, surface-level/transactional
| relationships, etc.). For me, the fact that this is a
| business-speak phenomenon automatically makes it eye-roll-
| worthy by association.
| bityard wrote:
| I don't mind when language changes for a good reason. Maybe
| we're doing (or have) a new kind of thing and the old
| description of it was awkward. But changing the meaning or
| context of an existing word for the sake of _style_ is
| annoying and ought to be called out because it just adds the
| potential for utterly pointless confusion.
| dymk wrote:
| This point come up in every thread about office speak, so rest
| easy that you are not alone
| alterom wrote:
| >and it's definitely _an annoy_.
|
| You didn't _have to_ do it to drive the point home, but boy did
| this do the job.
| el_pollo_diablo wrote:
| > boy
|
| And nouns as interjections.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I think of the interjection "boy" as being some 1930s-1950s
| movie speak for earnest young people expressing surprise or
| excitement about something, not office related at all.
| stevage wrote:
| To me there are semantic distinctions. If I say there was a
| request, it's neutral. If i say there was an ask, you know I
| think it's something a bit bigger, possibly a bit unreasonable.
| If I say there was a question, you know it's just information
| being sought.
|
| The article here points out the more annoying characteristic,
| which is using lots of stock phrases that don't contribute
| meaning over single words.
| christophilus wrote:
| > "There was an ask."
|
| This communicates nothing to me other than that the speaker
| probably is going to continue to annoy me.
| bdangubic wrote:
| same.
|
| and actually A LOT less serious in my mind than a request.
| If you used request I would think you are really in need of
| my assistance and I am paying attention. I hear "ask" and I
| think totally not important and ignorable
| jader201 wrote:
| Yeah, I'll still just say "large, possibly unreasonable
| request". :)
|
| (And I've never inferred that distinction anyway -- in all
| the cases I've heard it, I could've replaced "ask" with
| "request"/"question", and it would've meant the same thing,
| especially with any additional context.)
| VincentEvans wrote:
| > If i say there was an ask, you know I think it's something
| a bit bigger, possibly a bit unreasonable.
|
| That's the point - it isn't any of those things. It's made up
| by you (nothing personal, waving in general direction) on the
| spot and is not in any way a part of some imagined shared
| lingo. It's all complete and utter meaningless bs that some
| people like to imagine to be loaded with contextual depth.
| It's not.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Totally agree. Before I clicked into these comments I was
| actually just thinking about the single example that irks me
| the most is "the understand".
| jader201 wrote:
| Oh wow, that's a new one. Have you really heard that in
| conversation?
|
| I'm so sorry.
| drewcoo wrote:
| Learnings.
|
| Reminds me of Gurgi from Lloyd Alexander's Taran books (The
| Black Cauldron). Makes me giggle.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| I always make that connection too, with just that one word.
| Not sure why that one in particular, but it's consistent...
| vikingerik wrote:
| It goes the other way too, nouns as verbs, and just as cringy:
| "you can solution this", "we need to action that".
|
| Both ways come from subtle manipulation of language. "Ask"
| sounds like a polite word while "request" sounds demanding, so
| the former gets used even if it's the wrong word class.
| "Lesson" sounds harsh while a "learning" sounds positive. The
| word that gets used is whichever frames the speaker or
| conversation better, making them sound more courteous or
| cooperative and nudging the recipient towards complying.
| abecedarius wrote:
| > "request" sounds demanding
|
| I wonder if this is a kind of euphemism treadmill. When the
| feds demand the records on a user from a service, it's an
| "access request", as if you could politely say no, I would
| prefer not to. So connotations from "demand" leak onto
| "request" over time?
| mwigdahl wrote:
| These are awful, but the worst one for me is referring to
| "people" or "employees" as "resources". I feel a sharp surge of
| irritation every time someone does that.
| mongol wrote:
| I use to say "colleagues". That should be ok I hope.
| fghorow wrote:
| I used to work as a scientist in a large research org. I
| once had the director of HR address an email to us as
| "Colleagues".
|
| Talk about cringe.
|
| (Colleagues in my world connote someone who might be
| considered as a research collaborator. Definitely NOT HR
| bureaucrats.)
| nicoburns wrote:
| Yes, or "talent"
| kazinator wrote:
| Almost literally every noun in English can be verbed, and verbs
| can often be nouned.
| stavros wrote:
| My pet peeve is "utilize" when it means exactly the same thing
| as "use".
| sangnoir wrote:
| How about nouns as verbs? "The new dashboard will _surface_
| potential issues. If we find any ,I will _calendar_ a meeting
| for the cross-functional group to _workshop_ the list, and
| _task_ the relevant partner-teams to resolve "
| dingnuts wrote:
| surface as a verb isn't office jargon. Submarines and whales
| surface.
| bityard wrote:
| "Surface" has been a verb for a long time, particularly
| relevant to marine biologists and submariners, although
| obviously it's just a metaphor in an office setting, like
| "bubble up" would be.
|
| The others are on firmer ground as probably not good verbs.
| nottorp wrote:
| In my former communist dictatorship country, we had a term for
| how the party officials spoke.
|
| "Wooden language".
|
| Applies very much to this too.
| sarchertech wrote:
| Congratulations! I hate it. You did forget to include my person
| pet peeve--learnings.
|
| We already have a word for that--lessons.
| madmountaingoat wrote:
| There has only been one company I've worked for where
| 'learnings' was used extensively. It was Swedish. Not sure if
| that is relevant.
| criddell wrote:
| Mine is _performant_. People sometimes use it as a synonym for
| _high performance_ when really it just means working about as
| well as you would expect it to. It doesn 't imply anything
| especially great.
| kelnos wrote:
| This is one of the very few that I'm a little -- a little! --
| sympathetic toward. I don't know its origins, but to me,
| "lessons" can sound kind of harsh, like in the sense of a
| parent wagging their finger at a child, "I hope you've learned
| your lesson!" In contrast, "learnings" sounds quite a lot more
| friendly and less charged.
| pastaguy1 wrote:
| Is "solves" used like that in the wild? Haven't heard that one.
| hyperhello wrote:
| I give them twelve quarters...
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > we can action on our solve
|
| This causes me physical pain.
| guftagu wrote:
| When I proposed to my wife, I met her after a couple of years and
| didn't know at the time if she was seeing someone. I nudged the
| conversation towards that topic and once I found out that she
| isn't, I literally proposed to her in office jargon. I said, "So
| if the vacancy is still available, can I apply?". She said yes,
| and we got married eventually but she still isn't too happy about
| that proposal line.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| I was about to say I was suprised she ended up as your wife
| after that.
|
| To be frank: That is among worst possible lines you could've
| come up with, but glad it still worked out for you XD
| cafeinux wrote:
| So, if I get it right... You didn't meet that woman for years.
| You meet her, subtly ask if she's alone, then propose?
|
| That was bold of you, but even bolder from her to accept.
| saghm wrote:
| Yeah, I'm confused by this to. Did they not even date first,
| or was this how they asked her out?
| kelnos wrote:
| I think they meant that they'd dated in the past, but
| hadn't seen each other in many years.
|
| Still bold.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Safe to assume this is Indian or muslim culture where it's
| customary to set up a marriage between acquaintances, no
| dating as we know it.
| elijahbenizzy wrote:
| Not believable, didn't read "double click"
| ratherbefuddled wrote:
| If I had to listen to this sort of shit on a daily basis I think
| I'd begin to understand why you all over the water are upset
| about the prospect of people taking away your big shooty guns.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > why you all over the water are upset about the prospect of
| people taking away your big shooty guns
|
| All over the water? Ducks. It's the ducks. Ducks are the enemy.
| Unless we defend ourselves, the ducks will sap us of our
| natural vital fluids!
| wkjagt wrote:
| I haven't worked in an office in over three years. I sometimes
| think I miss it but now I no longer don't.
| drewcoo wrote:
| In the middle ages, all of Europe could hide behind Latin . . .
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| We need a similar one for divorce.
| sam_goody wrote:
| > But I'm so sorry, I have a three-thirty.
|
| I assume that means that she doesn't accept the proposal (lit.
| she has a meeting at 3:30), but don't quite follow how that.
|
| Can someone reach out and break that down for me.
| grotorea wrote:
| Lost opportunity to say "Would you accept a merger?" instead of
| marriage.
| kazinator wrote:
| Jumps off the creativity shark at "will you marry me".
|
| Should be "shall we convince the board of directors of your
| parent corporation to underwrite a merger deal whereby we unite
| your corporate assets with mine under a single shelter?
|
| As a modern organization, you may continue to operate under the
| same branding, if you choose, and the value of your stock shall
| not be diluted.
| ozzy6009 wrote:
| relevant krazam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RAMRukKqQg
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