Season 5 ~ Episode #94 - - - Stop Saying These 8 Phrases

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Permalink Reply by Lilian Brandon (Tachyonic Raven) on May 21, 2014 at 6:47pm

I agree about retiring some of the phrases, but not so sure about the replacements. I think Link's variation "go to the vomit zone" makes more sense than Rhett's "make yourself vomit", although I'm not sure I like how....gross it is. I did, however, really like "straddle the rocket" - it made me laugh, is a great visual that makes sense, and doesn't sound stilted when used in a sentence (as evidenced by Link's usage). I'll have to remember that one.

K-ModPermalink Reply by Victoria (Centauromadoose) on May 22, 2014 at 10:14pm

The business jargon I've encountered by working in the business department of an IT company has made my brain bleed. "Ping me" means "send me an email." "Bandwidth" and "cycles" refer to how much time a person has to complete work. I basically want to smack people in the face when they say things like "tag up," "touch base," and "circle back" just to mean "meet/have a meeting." If you want to have a meeting, say you want to have a meeting, or else I'm going to run up in the hall to smack you on the shoulder and call that our "tag up." -_-

But my biggest jargon pet peeve has unfortunately made its way into the wider world, as well: Using "impact" to mean "affect" or "effect" (e.g., "The last round of layoffs had a bad impact on employee morale"). No. No no no no no. Unless cars are crashing or a meteor is about to hit the earth, there is no impact happening here!

K-ModPermalink Reply by Gumbo123 on May 23, 2014 at 2:13pm

K-ModPermalink Reply by Gumbo123 on May 23, 2014 at 2:16pm

PART DEUX of my ranting and then I'm done with this particular subject - - - >

#3 - - in the banking industry, and in our little group in particular, there is WAY TOO MUCH use of acronyms and abbreviations. If you're not one of those select few who regularly use a certain phrase, by the time you figure out what they're talking about the conversation is over and you probably missed anything that might have actually been important.

So much so that they've now even created an Acronym Wiki page to search A-Z for terms. See sample below . . . and pay close attention to "CA" which has no less than seven (7) different meanings, not to mention "Collateral Analyst" as it is commonly used in my office.

Well, at least we haven't declined to the level of RAF banter. . .

#4 - - Most business meetings and even general conversations in a social setting that I've ever been involved in all have those participants who have a certain quirky little "pet word" that they love to toss around. You might not notice it at first when meeting with new folks, but eventually . . . like after the 2,oo0th time you sit in on a group discussion . . . you realize who these people are and start to think that Seppuku was probably created for a time such as this :

#5 - - the inventor of "#" for any use other than to represent the word "number" should be taken out, stripped down to his skivvies, covered in honey and hung by a rope tied around the big toes and slung over a low-lying tree limb and left to dangle atop an over-populated nest of fire ants. Show of hands . . . does anybody think I'm being too lenient here?

K-ModPermalink Reply by Gumbo123 on May 23, 2014 at 2:16pm

P.S. - - apparently RAF flight squadron leader the Rev. Charlie Drooper's great grandson now lives in Southern California:

K-ModPermalink Reply by Victoria (Centauromadoose) on May 23, 2014 at 10:17pm

AMEN to all of these!

For #3 -- My company contracts primarily with Government agencies, and the abundance of acronyms used on a regular basis is simply astounding. I didn't know so many acronyms ever even existed before. When I first joined, I was very shortly dropped into a meeting to take minutes, and everyone used so many acronyms I'd never heard of that I completely failed at taking functional notes. Lots of "???"s where names/acronyms were being tossed around. :(

#4 -- My rant here is based on your point but also brings up an entirely separate peeve: My closest friend at work has the awful, awful habit of misusing "literally" every single day. She says it about 10 times each day in the manner of Millennials who just use it for emphasis; she's 30+ and should know better anyway since she's also of an editorial mind. She's great and everything, but I'm going to have to start using some negative reinforcement to break her of that one...