Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site seismo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!eagle!harpo!seismo!flinn From: flinn@seismo.UUCP (E. A. Flinn) Newsgroups: net.jokes Subject: More technical jargon Message-ID: <669@seismo.UUCP> Date: Sat, 10-Mar-84 08:19:47 EST Article-I.D.: seismo.669 Posted: Sat Mar 10 08:19:47 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 11-Mar-84 00:40:12 EST Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA Lines: 86 "Without a Modem of Meaning" (by Daniel Mintz, Knight-Ridder) (from the Washington Post, 9/6/83) It's a doggy-dog world out there. Especially in Silicon Valley, where people have their own modem operandem for emerging technical jargon with the English language. But any time people speak spur-of-the-cuff, they matriculate metaphors, instill words with new meanings, and even creativize a few new ones. Business meetings are diamond mines for these bloopers, says John Ehrman, a local computer professional. He often catches gems like "many-fauceted problem" and "a cavilary attitude" when people try to impress their boss with long-winded and cliche-ridden remarks. "If you sit in a meeting and you're bored and want to look attentive, you listen not to the content of the meeting but to what people are saying," he says. Ehrman has been scribbling down these misstatements for ten years. With the help of some friends, he has collected a list of more than 400 from meetings, speeches, and memos of local companies and professional associations. He says that to the best of his knowledge, all were said or written in earnest. "Things were all up in a heaval." "She had a missed conception." "To be a leader, you have to develop a spear de corps." "I'm having a hard time getting my handles around that one." Or they mix cliches, with some unintended results: "If we keep on going this way, somebody is going to be left standing at the church with his pants on." "That's just putting the gravy on the cake." "I flew it by ear." "That's the whole kettle of fish in a nutshell." "It's as easy as falling off a piece of cake." Some of the phrases in Ehrman's list have a distinctly Silicon Valley flavor: "He works for that import-outport bank." "He wrote the specifications for that project." "We want to create an environment automatedly." People sometimes stick a word into a phrase, unaware that it only sounds like the right one: "There were tears strolling down their faces." "How should we amateurize the cost of the equipment over its expected lifetime?" "He likes sitting there in his big executive snivel chair." "Here's the crutch of the matter." "We didn't sleep very well last night; it was one of those castrated beds, and it kept rolling around." "He sees things from an unusual vintage point." "I wish someone would make a decision; I'm tired of just hanging in libido." "Would you like a craft of house wine?" "Don't put your umbrella and goulashes away yet." "I don't like swimming in that pool because it has too much of that green allergy." Sometimes our mouths keep going even though the thought's all through. "I'm not going to get side-tracked onto a tangent." "He was depressed due to domestic difficulties at home." "That will be with the exception of the additions which we will be adding." Putting the right words into the wrong place bears some strange fruits: "I can't hear what you're saying because of the noise of the celery I'm chewing in my ears." "All food must be removed from this refrigerator on Friday for cleaning." Occasional use of a dictionary can spare people lot of embarrassment: "Feasability means you are able to fease." "When a woman works in a group her husband manages, isn't that incest?" "He condenses a 5-minute speech into 20 minutes." Some of the utterances on the list escape rational explanation: "That needs some thinking about; let me go away and regurgitate for a couple of hours." "Things are so bad right now that even positions with people in them are vacant." "Now, we have some chance to cut some new water." And finally, one item captures many people's sentiments about most business meetings, where so much is said and so little makes sense: "I'm not sure we really need to understand what we're talking about."