Invented phrases

[jefmcg]

Oh, you people have missed the Chicken/Pig analogy? When making breakfast, the chicken is involved (eggs) while the pig is committed (bacon).

Apparently ,we are supposed to want to be pigs. While I've been seriously committed to the success of a project, I've never wanted to die for it. When people pull out this stupid allegory, it makes me want to back away, protect my loins ... and my eggs.

 

[jefmcg]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I

 

[TheDoctor]

Yeah "there's no i in team". What a great way to remind your smartest and most talented juniors that no one gives a shoot what they think.

...but there is a U in daffodil.
OK, not daffodil, obviously. The other word...

 

[ColinJ]

...but there is a U in daffodil.
OK, not daffodil, obviously. The other word...

Tulip?

 

[vernon]

...but there is a U in daffodil.
OK, not daffodil, obviously. The other word...

Narcissus? It's very similar to daffodil.

 

[marzjennings]

Not a phrase, but today I did manage to use agile, scrum, sprint and waterfall in one sentence during a job interview and by all accounts everyone understood what I was talking about.

I didn't get the chance to use 'out of left field' and 'pin that one to the wall'.

 

[Gravity Aided]

moving forward
pushing the envelope
touch base
arghhh...thats enough.......... im going for a lie down in a dark room....

These are the same people that use the so-called term "ideate". Humorously close to idiot.

 

[srw]

[QUOTE 3917012, member: 45"]Upcycling.

Musicality.

Both invented by people wanting to sound cleverer than the bloke next to them.[/QUOTE]
Actually the bloke who invented "musicality" (someone called E Johnson) admitted that he was making up a word. He wrote:

Vitality signifies, not life, but livability..as musicality (if I may be allowed to coin another word) would denote, not music, but the aptitude or fitness to give rise to musical sounds.

in 1850 in Life, Health, & Disease iii. 50. He might have been channelling Berlioz, who wrote the equivalent word in French 15 years earlier.

Personally I think "livability" is a far worse word than "musicality".

If you've got access to Dave TV's watch again facility, have a look at Dave Gorman's Modern Life is Goodish from last night, where he riffs on invented phrases like "bowl in a china shop" and "cat phrase".

 

[srw]

Not a phrase, but today I did manage to use agile, scrum, sprint and waterfall in one sentence during a job interview and by all accounts everyone understood what I was talking about.

I didn't get the chance to use 'out of left field' and 'pin that one to the wall'.

To be fair, agile, scrum and sprint are all technical terms in one particular project management technology, and waterfall is another methodology. So using them all in an interview for a job as a project manager is a bit like a bike engineer using words like derailleur, sprocket and nipple in an equivalent situation. And not very like using "out of left field".

 

[Drago]

Not a phrase, but today I did manage to use agile, scrum, sprint and waterfall in one sentence during a job interview and by all accounts everyone understood what I was talking about.

I didn't get the chance to use 'out of left field' and 'pin that one to the wall'.

As yes, "agile working" is a recent innovation where we work. Two words used to describe the single word "laptops". Why use one well established word when two meaningless ones will do, eh? And to think, in this era of austerity and cuts to public services funding someone has enough time in their hands to conceive and promulgate such rubbish.

 

[swansonj]

Do you folk really want a minimalist, purely functional language devoid of all evocation and imagery?

pushing the envelope

how else would you convey the concept of recognising that there are multiple dimensions to the factors that affect what you are trying to do, each factor has a constraint, whichever way you try to achieve your objective you run into one or more of those constraints, and rather than just accept that you are going to see if you can exceed any of those constraints, but not to the extent that you totally break the whole system?

Let's place this on the back burner.

"Hit the ground running"

Are all invocations of images from different areas of life to be banned? Personally when I hear hit the ground running I always think of the scene in Blues Brothers where the soldiers jump out of the personnel carrier and haven't got a clue which way to go...

"it could have wings"

Four syllables. As opposed to, say, it could have the potential to be an idea that makes more than just incremental progress, which is boringly mundane as well as six times as long...

Let's seek the views of our stakeholders and key stakeholders.

There's been a bit of a transformation in business and government circles over recent decades from seeing the public as passive recipients not deserving any say in what happens, to people who legitimately have a role in influencing outcomes, and if language can contribute to that, three cheers say I.

Don't you folk read poetry?

 

[Large]

Dave Gorman's Modern Life is Goodish last night had loads of phrases that have been misquoted.

e.g. It's a doggy dog world

and

like a bowl in a china shop

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

This is embarrassing: I just sent an IM with the words ''that works for me'' when I actually meant ''that's fine''. I think the fact that I had this thread open at the time may have influenced my word choice.

 

[Electric_Andy]

from "clue" - a fool and his money are welcome in Aberdeen"

A fool and his money are soon partying.

General management speak annoys me, especially when it spills over into the consumer world. I once joked to a colleague that I wanted to open up a posh snack wagon, and it would be called "Mike's bespoke luncheon solutions".

 

[Electric_Andy]

We're not allowed to say "brainstorm" at work,

We used to, but now it's called a "thought shower". Shower of shoot more like