[HN Gopher] A Ford executive who kept score of colleagues' verba...
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A Ford executive who kept score of colleagues' verbal flubs
Author : Caiero
Score : 125 points
Date : 2025-04-11 23:28 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| biglyburrito wrote:
| https://archive.md/Owu7u
| strathmeyer wrote:
| Do these articles show up for people? I get three lines that
| fade out.
| mdip wrote:
| The only issue I've ever had with archive.* links had to do
| with compatibility with Cloudflare's DNS but those just fail
| to resolve. I'm not sure what three lines that fade out is
| all about -- extensions, maybe?
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/Owu7u works for me. I wonder why this link
| would be appearing differently to different people. I've seen
| that faded three line thing many times, but this time.
| paulcole wrote:
| I would love to know the most drama caused by this thing over the
| years --- and how close it came to being shut down.
| djaouen wrote:
| I propose a solution to this problem: in meetings, make sure
| nobody speaks at all. Problem solved from your end, am I right???
| kcatskcolbdi wrote:
| Hey, keeping your sanity in corpo world can be a challenge.
| Sometimes you need a mini game like this just to help pass the
| time.
| wvbdmp wrote:
| Probably helps with paying attention/not falling asleep during
| meetings, too. And for everyone involved, if it's public. It's
| a bit like a swear jar.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Hopefully retiring at 55 helps.
| andelink wrote:
| I don't think it does. 55 is too late IMO
| bell-cot wrote:
| It would be fantastic if large _non_ -corporate org's had no
| need for buzzword bingo games.
|
| But alas! Nope.
| agentultra wrote:
| A family member of mine did this as an engineer for Chrysler. He
| passed on a copy of his "dictionary" to me and I've kept adding
| to it. I enjoy a good malapropism/egg-corn. He's not around
| anymore but the legacy continues.
|
| _Update_ we kept our practice a secret though, it wasn't nice to
| point these things out to people.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Had a boss was terrible in other ways (he got fired over
| sexually harassing one of my coworkers) but he would constantly
| mess up common sayings. The one I remember most is "bumpin the
| bumper traffic" instead of "bumper to bumper".
| parineum wrote:
| > he got fired over ... bumpin the bumper
| NegativeK wrote:
| My grandfather was well known at work for, uh, creative
| sayings. Malapropisms, misheard cliches, or just wild-ass new
| phrases. His coworkers took to secretly writing them down over
| the years, and they read them off during his retirement party
| to universal delight.
|
| A copy of the list ended with us, the family, and has come up
| during my grandfather's wake and a few times since then.
|
| Absolutely agree that it might not be nice, but context
| depending it absolutely can be -- as well as a really touching
| legacy.
| millzlane wrote:
| Not relevant, but was that a Honda in his Driveway?
| cebert wrote:
| No, that's a Mustange Mach-e
| millzlane wrote:
| Oh okay thanks for the updaten
| delichon wrote:
| I take joy in inventing new broken cliches and save them up for
| conversations. If I saw someone keeping score I'd ask them to
| publish a leaderboard so that I could compete for bragging
| wrongs.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| > ... bragging wrongs
|
| Brilliant.
| wut-wut wrote:
| Same faml, same.
| chris_st wrote:
| Where I worked last the dress code was super relaxed, unless a
| bigwig or customer was expected. Made a co-worker laugh once by
| describing us as "Dressed to the ones".
| staticautomatic wrote:
| You don't exactly have to be a rocket surgeon to invent them.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Sometimes such mistakes are genuinely intriguing revelations.
| For example, in TFA:
|
| "Read between the tea leaves."
| cafard wrote:
| A sometime co-worker had on display in her office a list of
| "Molly-isms" (name redacted) assembled by those who worked
| closely with her. I did not particularly, and don't recall them.
|
| A woman I worked with long ago was trying to tell her boss that
| something was "a whole new ballgame" but came out with "whole new
| ballpark." The boss didn't pick up on it, but after work she
| mentioned it to her husband, and "a whole new ballroom" became a
| family catchphrase.
| nehal3m wrote:
| A friend of mine simply forgot the term thirsty and told me he
| felt the urge to drink. We kept that one too.
| THroaway225 wrote:
| that made me feel like I wanted to start laughing!
| switch007 wrote:
| I also had an urge to make my belly move in and out in a
| way that made a funny noise come out my mouth!
| djmips wrote:
| Toddlers are great for inventing phrases. Like Eating Store
| for restaurant.
| tomcam wrote:
| That is a way better term than restaurant
| havermeyer wrote:
| It makes me think of the how "I have thirst" is the literal
| translation from the French for "I'm thirsty."
| dirtyhippiefree wrote:
| There's power in not allowing a need to define you.
|
| "I have autism" is a better statement than "I'm autistic"
| because autism doesn't define me.
| justusthane wrote:
| Same in Spanish. Tengo sed.
| mrspuratic wrote:
| My handle arose from a former colleague's attempt, decades ago,
| to describe a network malfunction he was trying to diagnose as
| either (or both) of spurious and erratic in a single word...
| dmurray wrote:
| Not too be confused with _sporadic_?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| We used to make notes of management-isms and then play buzzword-
| bingo in company-wide meetings. When you got a full card, to
| properly win, you were required to ask the management a question
| that included the word 'house' (saying 'bingo' would have been
| too obvious, even for our managers).
| marcusb wrote:
| I once had a coworker who called this "bullshit bingo" and had
| a bingo grid drawn on a whiteboard at her desk with all of the
| latest buzzwords.
|
| On a somewhat-related note, my grandfather told me that while
| he was in Officer Candidate School in the Army, there would be
| someone assigned to ring a bell whenever a person who was
| leading a briefing or otherwise presenting faltered with an
| "oral pause" (uh, ummm, etc.) I don't know if this was a normal
| or ongoing practice.
| quercusa wrote:
| Toastmasters has someone assigned to _count_ these when
| someone is making a speech but the bell is next level.
| echelon wrote:
| We used to do this for every earnings call.
|
| We printed up bingo cards filled with buzzwords, products,
| trends, things we thought the analysis might say, etc. We
| charged $15 per card, all of which was pooled and given to the
| charity of the winner's choice. When the CEO caught on, he
| started matching the donations.
|
| There was a reverse version of this played too. We voted in
| Slack for some weird word or phrase that the CEO or CFO had to
| say during the earnings calls. They were super awkward and
| totally unrelated, and the goal was they had to weasel the
| phrase in somehow. It was pretty funny.
|
| (For someone else in the know, without giving away the company,
| do you remember any of the wacky phrases?)
| pugz wrote:
| I currently work at the company. Wacky words that I can find
| in Slack include
|
| - updog
|
| - stegosaurus
|
| - brat
|
| - flabbergasted
|
| - superbowl
|
| - crouton
| xeromal wrote:
| lol idk why crouton has me flabbergastedly in stitches.
| echelon wrote:
| I remember stegosaurus! Good times.
| sigkill wrote:
| > the goal was they had to weasel the phrase in somehow
|
| Reminds me of the old short story, I think it was called "The
| Club"?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > (For someone else in the know, without giving away the
| company, do you remember any of the wacky phrases?)
|
| The phrases from that company (late 90s) are now long-gone
| from my mind, mere flotsam on the subsequent sea of bullshit.
|
| But later on I worked a lot with soldiers from the British
| Army and discovered to my delight that they also had some
| excellent phrases. Off the top of my head
|
| Wolf closest to the sledge / Crocodile closest to the canoe =
| highest priority problem
|
| Left and right of arc = the extreme ends of a spectrum of
| possible choices
|
| Don't fight the white = in a test, answer the question rather
| than complain about it (in staff college exams, the question
| was on white paper, answer was a different coloured paper,
| apparently)
|
| Interview without coffee = a dressing down from a senior
| officer
|
| etc etc.
| CPLX wrote:
| I once had to work with a consultant who was the most over the
| top bullshit artist I had ever seen in my life. Their line of
| work was getting "out of it" execs to feel like he understood
| the online world and getting paid to create nonsense launches.
|
| I used to take notes and just try to capture the buzzword
| onslaught. Here's an old notepad cut-and-paste from a single 90
| minute meeting this guy was in:
|
| We should sidebar
|
| I'll call an audible and order lunch
|
| So maybe we'll put that into a live fire exercise
|
| We're elbow deep now
|
| I'm starting to ladder into goals and tactics
|
| Let's explore this for a second so we can put it in the parking
| lot
|
| Let's take a bio-break
|
| It's not on the top of my want-to-do list
|
| I want to get back to some more basic block and tackle
|
| If you look at it as crawl, walk, run. I mean I hate that
| metaphor, but we're transitioning from crawl to walk
|
| I have some suggestions around merchandising homepage content
|
| I've already done concepting
|
| It's analytics with icebreaking on the social side
|
| I'll type up outputs and share
|
| We're potentially opening the aperture on expert interviews
|
| Out of this decision comes wayfinding for that decision
|
| I'm looking for the exponential in this
|
| Alright, I think we can land it
| wglb wrote:
| "Were elbow deep now" sounds like Judy Blunt's description of
| helping birth a calf in "Breaking Clean"
| protocolture wrote:
| Had a similar game when I was in a weird role. 2 separate lines
| of business had their own internal IT functions. However,
| thanks to a weird set of accountability/responsibility we
| maintained the hardware/platform of the public webserver while
| they maintained the website.
|
| So we had 2 pots. The meaner pot was internal to our own team,
| where we would bet on both how many users would connect to the
| webserver before it crashed, and then what the other team would
| blame as the fault. It was always ~3200 and it was almost
| always RAM.
|
| One of us would sit in on their publicity events, and present
| the other team with live readouts on hardware usage. The server
| had umpteen processors with eleventy Jigahertz, and all the RAM
| that could fit in the chassis (~128GB from memory). 3000 odd
| users would connect simultaneously, RAM usage would spike to
| 2%, processor usage would spike to 3% and the website would
| crash. We would cash in on their pot as to the number of
| successful simultaneous connections. Then we would go back to
| our team, and cash in on users AND whatever they were blaming.
|
| After which our IT managers would have their monthly duel where
| ours would send them a quote to build a better website and they
| would send us a strongly worded email about how they felt the
| hardware was the bottleneck.
| teddyh wrote:
| It's been a thing since at least 1994: <https://dilbert-
| viewer.herokuapp.com/1994-02-22>
| mhb wrote:
| _The risk of getting flagged added to the pressure of presenting
| at meetings, Murphy said. "All the sudden you'll hear a pen
| click, and you're thinking, 'What did I say that wasn't right?'"_
|
| "All the sudden"?
| Ezra wrote:
| I think this is an eggcorn/mondegreen for "all of a sudden".
|
| Seems weird for the WSJ.
| voxic11 wrote:
| It's a quote from a source so at most I would expect a
| "[sic]". Thinking about it more... it seems like an
| intentional mistake by the speaker to demonstrate the sort of
| verbal flub the quote is about. In which case it's pretty
| clever and a "[sic]" would kind of ruin the subtlety of the
| joke.
| mhb wrote:
| I think you're being too generous to both the speaker and
| the WSJ, but maybe that's too cynical.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0sV3m0pUoM
|
| (The transcription of the dialogue itself contains an error, to
| wit, the use of "penhead" instead of "pinhead".)
| Spooky23 wrote:
| My team did a "Top 10" amusing/stupid/notable sayings and trolls
| in a year and has a little mock tribunal in the week after
| Christmas to determine the winner. The top troll got a little
| troll doll, spray painted gold, and we usually had the best or
| worst saying framed somehow. The top contributor for sayings
| would get a lucite award, which had been given to someone who was
| a charlatan who had left the company, updated with a sharpie and
| duct-tape.
|
| That was one of my favorite groups of co-workers. Miss that crew!
| narag wrote:
| The movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162711
| danesparza wrote:
| And people wonder why American manufacturing (and Detroit in
| particular) has done so poorly for the past 50 years. It's starts
| at the top. Here is an incredibly candid (and depressing) example
| of this.
|
| Perhaps if they paid attention this closely to market conditions
| and manufacturing innovations, Ford wouldn't have this
| embarrassing example of a corporate executive that is so out of
| touch.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Holy shit, you're right - it does seem reasonable to see this
| one little story as a valid critique/indictment of US
| industrial policy!
| mdip wrote:
| A buddy of mine started me on a similar habit that I find
| obnoxious but impossible to kick.
|
| It started when we were in a meeting with an executive (who was a
| wonderful man) who -- due to nerves -- used the filler phrase "ya
| know" about twice a sentence -- like someone who's nervous might
| use the filler word "um" or "uh."
|
| When the meeting was over, I'd joked that he'd said "ya know"
| three times in the same sentence and without missing a beat he
| said "541, I counted"[0]. He went on to explain that when someone
| repeats a word/phrase, especially if it's a word that's used "to
| sound intelligent", he can't help but count.
|
| Incidentally, despite having no reason to be suspicious[1], I
| didn't believe him and being in an IT department with its share
| of folks with social anxiety and various forms of autism[2], it
| took all of a day before we were in another meeting with someone
| who, I think, pronounced "infeasible" as "in-THESE-able." A minor
| mistake, but he repeated it a solid thirty times _and_ liked to
| really push that emphasis on the second syllable. We got out of
| the meeting and I asked for his number. "37"[0] he said. I was
| one off. It ended up becoming a weird sort of corporate meeting
| game that we did a few times a month over 17 years. It's a
| ridiculously easy habit to pick up, it turns out. I've been out
| of that job for years and I _still_ do it. No real reason, any
| longer. I don 't think less of people who don't have a solid
| command of public speaking -- as in, I'm not doing it for the
| purpose of feeling superior or being a d!ck and pointing it out
| to them. The only people that know I do this (other than readers
| of my comments on HN) are my kids and the guy who got me hooked.
|
| [0] The exact number escapes me but it was a suspiciously random
| sounding number
|
| [1] This guy marched to the beat of a different drummer. I have
| so _many_ stories of outlandish claims he made that turned out to
| be absolutely true by this point that I should have taken him at
| his word. By this point he 'd shown me a receipt indicating his
| bill was less than a dime for what must have been two carts worth
| of groceries (early 2000s), and it was only a dime because he
| bought something from the register to avoid a negative balance (a
| problem he's navigated in the past).
|
| [2] Myself and (I suspect) my friend are diagnosed ASD as well.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > [2] Myself and (I suspect) my friend are diagnosed ASD as
| well.
|
| That hypercorrection is ghastly.
| globnomulous wrote:
| Myself agrees.
| jaggederest wrote:
| I swear I did this once in school, to a teacher with a
| notoriously circuitous manner of speaking, by holding up my
| fingers and counting the filler words, and he slowly noticed
| it, became mildly horrified, and... fixed it, within about 6
| weeks. Pretty impressive, I wonder what he did to change so
| quickly.
|
| Originally he'd take 2 minutes to get through his name and
| phone number on a voicemail, and a few months later you
| wouldn't even recognize him by how clear and concise he was.
| craftkiller wrote:
| With how great speech recognition is becoming, it seems like
| this is something remote workers could easily discreetly do
| since our conversations tend to be stationary, through a
| computer, and with only a small part of our body visible.
| Just wire up some electrodes to zap you every time the
| computer detects filler. I'm now seriously considering doing
| it myself.
| alex1115alex wrote:
| One of our app devs built this recently, but for swearing:
|
| https://youtube.com/shorts/FthRCwn1JuM?si=lC3eWAUI7sV-LL-r
|
| A wearable speech coach would be awesome, though. Detect
| filler words and give you an alert on your HUD when it
| detects "uh" "uhm" etc.
| craftkiller wrote:
| Neat! Without the electrodes I don't think it would be
| effective for me for "uhh" / "uhm". Considering how
| unconscious filler words are, I think I'd need the
| immediate unignorable feedback. But you've got all the
| logic there, it just needs to be made more violent.
| khafra wrote:
| How should the speech coach stimulate you when it detects
| you using a particularly euphonously or impactfully?
| gcanyon wrote:
| It would be about as easy, and certainly less painful, to
| just have a video processor remove and smooth over filler
| words in real time.
|
| If the filler words are excessive it would slow down the
| apparent rate of speech, but obviously not the _real_ rate
| of speech, by definition, since we 're only removing words
| with zero semantic value.
| tomcam wrote:
| Wonderful story but we must also acknowledge the teacher for
| going along with it so gracefully
| jaggederest wrote:
| All the credit is his, I was just a dumb little punk who
| didn't know better. Handling it gracefully and making such
| an astounding change in response.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Your non-verbal communication sent the message.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > his bill was less than a dime for what must have been two
| carts worth of groceries (early 2000s)
|
| Ah, yes, the coupon cutters that would spend all of their free
| time trying to get a deal. But if they were happy doing it,
| then who am I to judge.
| mdip wrote:
| He did it more out of necessity, originally, but when I met
| him, yeah, it was "for fun". Among the other stories I found
| to be true was "I worked at KFC for $8/hr and owned a
| home[0]"
|
| [0] In a lower-middle-class neighborhood.
| e3bc54b2 wrote:
| Now I want more of these stories. I've met couple of
| drummers among sitarists in life but you've got 17 years(!)
| worth of stories :D
| codersfocus wrote:
| More likely he learned the algorithm to create fake coupons
| himself. If I recall correctly it's literally just the UPC
| and how much to take off. There was NO security to the
| system.
| frereubu wrote:
| For my sins I was once in a Microsoft SQL training session. The
| guy leading it was great, but at the end of every thought he'd
| make a noise in his throat, like "uhn" or similar. I couldn't
| stop noticing it acting like a carriage return at the end of
| each thought, and hyper-fixated on it to the extent that I
| learnt precisely nothing.
| djmips wrote:
| Nvidia or someone needs to get on a method to filter out the
| filler words / weird sounds in realtime and failing that
| automated post processing of saved presentations.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Teams already has a kind of 'speaker coach' feature, that
| could be extended.
|
| Looking forward to videoconferences with filtered faces and
| speech that has been smoothed over with the occasional
| computer glitch, but people still prefer it.
| craftkiller wrote:
| I once worked for a CEO that pronounced "year" as "yeah". I
| loved it. Every meeting felt like a pep rally because it was
| sprinkled with phrases like "we've got four yeahs" and "we
| worked all yeah on this".
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Northeast USA, maybe NY or NJ?
| craftkiller wrote:
| I think he was Australian but we were in silicon valley at
| the time (though I live+work in that area now).
| nopassrecover wrote:
| Yeah I can picture it. The non-rhotic R on its own
| doesn't narrow it further, but there would be distinction
| within Australia based on the sounds of the "ea" part.
|
| Off the cuff I can picture some Australians taking it
| more nasally at the top of the palate sort of yee-ah
| (think Steve Irwin), a more neutral yeehr with a hint of
| final r (but more clipped and mono syllable than an
| American accent), or even a yair that might push as far
| as yuhhh (heading towards a sort of hybrid of Californian
| Valley Girl and the posh British accent used in American
| media).
|
| Bit of an exploration of the evoking Australian accent
| here: https://amp.abc.net.au/article/103321146
| dylan604 wrote:
| Australians have other speech things too like shortening
| words and ending them with a long E sound. breakfast =>
| breaky(or however they spell it down under). or adding an
| "oh" syllable to words like right-o
| hoseja wrote:
| All dose poiple, all dose hamboigahs.
| HPsquared wrote:
| A LOT of people in the nuclear industry pronounce it as
| 'nucular'. I'm a little horrified.
| bena wrote:
| This may be wrong or apocryphal or a third thing:
|
| But I recall reading that this is a deliberate affect used
| by those who work with nuclear material. Partly as a
| shibboleth, partly as a means of making the word easier to
| say quickly.
|
| It came up because George W Bush would pronounce it
| "nucular" and that was given as the reason. All if my
| memory serves that is.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It would make sense as a different spelling and
| pronunciation I guess. Like "molecular" or "ocular" or
| "particular". Fits in better.
| blipvert wrote:
| Simpson fans, surely, for obvious reasons.
|
| I'd bet that they love the foilage in fall, too.
| sjcsjc wrote:
| Someone has to say cromulent at this point
| freedomben wrote:
| Always remember, "A Noble Spririt Embiggens The Smallest
| Man."
| crazygringo wrote:
| You can read all about it:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucular
|
| But it's not something to be horrified by; it's no
| different from how we commonly pronounce "February" without
| the first "r", or "government" without the "n", or
| "Wednesday" flipping the "dne" to "nd".
|
| What's even more interesting is that it's _only_ in the
| context of weapons /energy. The same person will say
| "nuclear family" the way it's spelled.
|
| But in the weapons/energy context, it's just a natural re-
| use of the suffix in "moleCULAR", "oCULAR", "cirCULAR".
| Technically wrong in terms of its derivation, but it feels
| entirely natural to say, and requires less tongue movement.
|
| It's not due to a lack of education or anything. It's more
| like a regional dialect, where the region is nuclear
| weapons and energy.
| fvrghl wrote:
| Do you pronounce it as Wed-nes-day?
|
| I've never heard it as anything but Wends-day, but maybe
| everyone else is wrong.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Boston?
| freedomben wrote:
| Quote possibly, I'm guessing a resident of Boston for many
| yeahs
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > pronounced "infeasible" as "in-THESE-able."
|
| What other way could you pronounce it?
|
| https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=0...
|
| ...unless you're saying he pronounced the 'F' as a 'TH'?
| andelink wrote:
| > pronounced the 'F' as a 'TH'?
|
| That's how I read it
| psunavy03 wrote:
| If you speak publicly at all as part of your job, it's actually
| a good thing to keep track of your verbal/physical tics and try
| to eliminate/minimize them. Whether it's "umm," "you know," a
| hand gesture you keep doing, subconsciously swaying back and
| forth slightly, or whatever. They're all distracting even
| before you get to the level where people start counting them.
| disambiguation wrote:
| 20 ;)
|
| [0](https://quillbot.com/grammar-check)
| georgebcrawford wrote:
| "beat of a different drummer."
|
| I really want to check if it's drum or drummer, but will
| refrain and live in hope that it was a clever joke
| tomcam wrote:
| Also be careful about adding an "f"
| charlieglass wrote:
| I thought is was just "marches to the beat of his own drum."
| That way, no other party is involved, it is him doing life
| the way he way he wants to.
| WWLink wrote:
| I had a college professor who used "basically" and
| "essentially" so much that it was awfully distracting.
| tomcam wrote:
| Which bothers me a lot in that context. Those are normally
| powerful distinctions in an academic context...
| aoanevdus wrote:
| When I was a kid, an adult told me that I should stop using
| "basically" as a filler word because people will interpret it
| as an insult to their intelligence (ie. "You're not smart
| enough for the whole thing, so I will just tell you the basic
| version"). I've been attentive to the way other people use
| the word ever since, and I think they have a point. Some
| people say it very frequently and don't mean anything by it.
| But a good chunk of the time, it does seem like there is a
| status game going on when people use that word.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| The other side of that is offering a 'basically' version
| out of respect for the listener, assuming they have more
| important things to do than listen to a detailed nerd-
| rambling of something they aren't interested in.
| Listener/speaker can expand on the details or ask questions
| later, if needed.
|
| It's possible to mean it either way, or to hear it and
| interpret it either way.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I prefer "essentially" ... pretty much the same meaning but
| it's more like a sign of respect "I'm summarising this
| point to its essence for brevity, as you are perfectly
| capable of filling in the blanks yourself".
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| This seems like a highly overwrought analysis where the
| adult formed a mental model, began assuming the motivations
| and intentions of others with certainty, and passed on this
| "lesson" a malleable mind who had no reason to debate it.
|
| The idea that people use this word as a
| subtle/unintentional insult to others' intelligence rather
| than as a synonym for "essentially"... I just don't know
| how people arrive at such ungenerous conclusions so
| confidently.
| al_borland wrote:
| I've played similar games at work when people were particularly
| distracting by how often they said some of these things.
|
| Funny enough, "ya know" was one of the main phrases. I hear
| that a lot from people in NJ, I'm curious if your co-worker was
| from NJ as well, or the general vicinity.
| protocolture wrote:
| I find a lot of people in IT and adjacent areas picked up a lot
| of their vocab by reading, without any guidance on
| pronunciation. I tend to let them get to 3 goes before
| correcting them.
| freedomben wrote:
| Indeed, this is a very common occurence IME. It's happened to
| me a couple times (especially the word "contiguous" which to
| this day I don't think I've heard another person pronounce
| out loud other than myself, and I find the word confuses
| people), but I hear it constantly. Even the word "Linux" (you
| often hear pronounced "Lie-Nix") often gets people. Then
| considering all the acronyms which don't have a standardized
| pronunciation, it's an interesting time.
| vmatouch wrote:
| Regarding "to sound intelligent," I've recently begun
| distinguishing between two forms:
|
| 1) Saying something correctly but unnecessarily complicated -
| for example, when a project manager says, "We do not have
| financial resources for that," instead of simply, "We don't
| have money for that," when declining a team dinner (a CFO's
| report is another story).
|
| 2) Saying something incorrectly - for instance, "It is really
| flustrating."
|
| I've started to dislike the latter more. The former involves
| people who at least use correct phrases, even if they're trying
| too hard to impress others. The latter indicates people who
| simply don't read.
| mannykannot wrote:
| 'Flustrated' looked to me like a potentially useful
| portmanteau word, and at least Merriam-Webster seems to
| agree, which would give some legitimacy to 'flustrating'.
| Whether the person you hear saying the latter had this in
| mind is, of course, another matter.
|
| To give an idea of how I see it as potentially useful, there
| are some frustrating events which leave a person in no doubt
| that there's nothing they can do to remedy the situation (or
| that they have no choice but to put a lot of work into fixing
| a situation which never should have arisen), while others
| might leave a person in a tizzy over what to do now.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There's plenty of times I've deliberately used a made up
| word that onomatopoetically just fit better. See? It just
| works.
|
| I absolutely know when I'm doing it, and it's not a
| confusing/conflating of two words situation. I see it no
| different than when people say any new phrase like how
| people just say "bet" in a way that has absolutely nothing
| to do with the word's definition. At least what I'm doing
| still uses the meaning of the pormanteau's base words
| appropriately rather than just using a word randomly
| because it's hip
| gosub100 wrote:
| Sort of a variant on 1) I dislike speakers that overuse
| "essentially" and "basically". I think their motivations vary
| but almost always the words can be removed without any change
| in meaning.
| robofanatic wrote:
| This behavior has some parallels with what happens in the movie
| _Dinner for Schmucks_.
| globnomulous wrote:
| > Myself and (I suspect) my friend are diagnosed ASD as well.
|
| "My friend and I."
| morkalork wrote:
| My spouse and I keep a running catalogue of these for fun.
| They're a great indicator of how tired and burnt out one another
| are. Recently there was "begruntle" for what I guess is
| begrudgingly doing something while disgruntled.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Arguably, the frequency of malapropisms in the boardroom suggests
| economic mobility is taking place. The vernacular of those in the
| socioeconomic class that someone of a lower socioeconomic class
| aspires to join will be unfamiliar.
|
| Clumsy expressions of socioeconomic aspirations go beyond
| language, of course. Take the infamously bad taste of the parvenu
| and the comical snobbery of the nouveau riche and those who ape
| them.
| sollewitt wrote:
| Kinda like some HN posters write the way they think academics
| talk?
| neves wrote:
| Best comment here, and even made me change my perspective. I
| have a work colleague that makes a lot of grammar mistakes. It
| annoys me but I'm wrong. Funny mistakes everyone makes, but we
| must be careful with our prejudices. Thanks.
| geocrasher wrote:
| As somebody who had to withhold a burst of laughter when hearing
| "procurator" mispronounced as "procreator", I approve of this
| article before even reading it.
| chris_wot wrote:
| Former Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, was once
| caught extolling the virtues of his candidate - he called her
| the "suppository of all wisdom".
| NikkiA wrote:
| I once was asking my parents to pick up some batteries for
| something or other while they were at the supermarket, when I
| was about 13/14 and had a brain fart and said 'Durex' (a brand
| of condoms common to most of the world except most of America)
| instead of 'Duracell'.
|
| A tough conversation followed.
| froindt wrote:
| My brain couldn't decide which word to use. I asked my mom
| when someone had moved into their condo/condominium, which
| came out as condom.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I like when phrases get reversed. Like "better sorry than safe"
| or "look both ways after crossing the road".
| nopmat wrote:
| A former boss of mine used to say "coopulate" when they meant
| "cooperate".
| wampwampwhat wrote:
| any chance someone here works at ford and is willing to share the
| full spreadsheet? I need some inspiration
| carabiner wrote:
| We had a guy named Smith, and well we saved his sayings as
| Smithisms in a word doc.
| bitwize wrote:
| My mom and sister both use "six to one, half a dozen to another".
| I use the actual form of the idiom, "six of one, half a dozen of
| the other" and my mom used to correct me. I guess I know why she
| said it wrong: imagine two people. And one says "It's six", and
| another says "no, it's half a dozen". They're both the same, they
| mean the same, but it's six to one (person), half a dozen to
| another (person).
|
| That said, if I were going to start a Borg-themed band, Six of
| One would be a kick-ass name.
| wglb wrote:
| Like Seven oh Nine?
| tptacek wrote:
| "Mazel tov cocktail" can be no flub!
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Didn't he have better things to do?
|
| This makes me question Ford's corporate effectiveness, and
| therefore their cars...
| chris_wot wrote:
| I once played a game of cards and it was dragging... and someone
| yelled out "a quick game is a fast game!"
| switch007 wrote:
| I "could" care less about verbal flubs ;)
|
| Let David Mitchell explain, in a totally non sarcastic way
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Seems like a weird pastime. Like recording spelling misttakes.
| Sniglets are a much more smarter way to spend your time. Rather
| than just a brain turd, they're a placental ejection of humor and
| common smarts.
| cantrecallmypwd wrote:
| A coworker of mine kept score on paper when the associate vice
| provost used a certain bizword during their all-hands speech.
| They were a nepo hire because they were friends or family of
| Condi Rice.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Lot of people with the filler word tick you can tell if they know
| what they're talking about or just wanting to make you think they
| know because confident subjects often don't include the filler
| words.
| helz wrote:
| Every time somebody says "parenthesee" my nerves fray and my hair
| stands on end.
| seethishat wrote:
| It's natural for busy people in chaotic environments to misspeak.
| Our brains are doing many things at once while also trying to
| convey an idea/thought verbally.
|
| It's a side effect of stress/pressure/multi-tasking. It's not an
| indication of intelligence.
| stavros wrote:
| Nobody disagrees, the article is pretty clear that it's all
| good fun.
| globnomulous wrote:
| A smarter person, with a better command of the language, will
| be better able to negotiate those difficulties. So the ability
| to speak effectively under stress really is a sign of education
| and intelligence.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| If you want to succeed in public life it helps to be articulate.
| Just look at Kamala and Don. Oh, wait. Cancel that.
| efitz wrote:
| My ex wife used to do the same thing in her work meetings with a
| particular executive; she kept a notebook with his verbal
| missteps.
|
| It wasn't until much later that I learned that the particular
| mistake this guy was prone to making was called a mondegreen, not
| a malapropism.
| wglb wrote:
| My own personal favorite is "Not my horse, not my monkey"
| NoSalt wrote:
| I have my own subset of mis-sayings that I notice. The biggest
| one is when people say:
|
| "Coming down the pipe." instead of "Coming down the pike."
|
| :-D
| apercu wrote:
| Interesting. I had a similar experience mentoring someone who had
| a lot of potential but tended to stutter when presenting to
| clients until they would get in to a flow. What I did was gently
| say that "I, too, am sometimes nervous presenting to a room" of
| strangers (usually executives) during project pitches due to the
| stakes.
|
| So I told them that my trick was to get them talking about their
| business straight out of the gate (because most people like
| talking about themselves at that level) and their stutter went
| away.
|
| I feel like that's maybe more constructive approach.
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