The "Annoying Phrase" Thread

[Frunobulax]

I once took part in a analytical paper that examined the difference between jargon, buzzwords, and slang within particular communities. To generalize, jargon and slang develop organically within communities and indicate one's membership of that community. The difference between the two is that jargon serves as a practical shorthand that deals with ideas, tools, techniques, and situations particular to that community. Slang on the other hand is most often used to identify something 'not of the community but with which we have to deal with'. Both slang and jargon often portray a dark humor and can be offensive to those outside the community. This in turn often adds to their bonding effect on community members. This is particularly true in communities that are involved in stressful 'life on the edge' situations, i.e. medicine, law enforcement, military, factory work, mining, logging, and commercial fishing. Slang and jargon exist because they describe something that exists to that community. Attempts to eradicate the use of a particular word or phrase usually fail because the item described continues to exist and another word or phrase will evolve to replace it. Buzzwords are a bit more complicated to define as they can be used for multiple and indistinct purposes. To generalize, buzzwords come from outside particular communities, deal with ideology and organization, and are used to imply meaning and superiority within the community. There was a lot more but that is the gist of what we determined.

Good post. I had a fluids prof that explained the only reason professional schools exist is to learn the insular language so as to exclude others.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

 

[LizzieMaine]

An awful lot of cultural-studies writing falls into that category -- academics writing solely for other academics. "Publish or perish!"

 

[belfastboy]

I have been through multiple management changes and sat through far too many meetings and trainings where buzzwords flew thick and fast.
My entirely unscientific observation is simply this. The lower on the competence scale you are and the higher that you have climbed on the Peter principle ladder, the more highly developed your buzzword vocabulary becomes. A low buzzword vocabulary seems to correlate with people who have a general ability to get s*#t done.

I devoted the 1980's to developing my career as a salesrep. One hallmark of the time were the changes in management as guys floated up and down the corporate ladder. We salesmen, at each change would have new management foisted upon us and interminable rounds of meetings as the new manager imprinted his innovations on the company. This always included a heavy dose of jargon. This was a time of self help books (personal and corporate) such as Pursuit of Excellence etc etc. I will always remember us sales guys sitting in the meetings, shrugging shoulders and rolling eyes. The smart ones (like me) just smiled and nodded......and recited the mantra....."this too shall pass." And indeed it did, at least until the next new manager came along and we started all over again. In the meantime we prepared for the inevitable...."shift in paradigm"......a favourite term for the world's worst manager. He had no idea what it meant but he sure loved the sound of it!

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Oh yes, the age of the “paradigm shift.”

Thing is, paradigms do shift, and it’s worth noting that. But that phrase became so hackneyed that when I heard of a paradigm shift I said, “What? You tellin’ me it ain’t 20 cents no more?”

 

[GHT]

I devoted the 1980's to developing my career as a salesrep. One hallmark of the time were the changes in management as guys floated up and down the corporate ladder. We salesmen, at each change would have new management foisted upon us and interminable rounds of meetings as the new manager imprinted his innovations on the company. This always included a heavy dose of jargon.

The world ‘jargon’ originates from the Old French word jargoun which roughly translates as ‘chattering of birds’, which came to mean ‘gibberish’.

Offensive to the birds perhaps, who are simply informing each other about where to find a decent supply of worms, but it’s interesting that the word ‘jargon’ has evolved again, particularly in a business environment. ‘Business jargon’ now means phrasing and vocabulary that denotes the corporate environment you are in. Something about the sight of plain white walls, banks of computer desks and ‘inspirational’ posters with quotes by Einstein makes us want to start spewing bizarre phrases and behaving in a way that would weird-out our best friends at home.

Thirty years of corporate management, I've heard all the gibberish, the gobble-de-gook and the metaphors. How many of these can you remember?

At the end of the day; Low hanging fruit; Let’s hold a calibration meeting; Tin cupping; Let’s suck the marrow out of it; Tension in the system; I need a single belly button as a go-to on this project; On a go-forward basis; Level the playing field; Playing on the same team; Drinking from the fire hose; Walk the walk, Talk the talk, Walk the talk and Talk the walk; Get on the same page; Get our arms around it;
I’m going to have to noodle over this idea; Deep dive; Thinking outside the box; Drop the kimono; Let’s marinate on this one; Provide air cover; Peel back the onion; Go back to Square 1; Run it up the flagpole; Pushing the envelope; Circle the wagons; Mission critical.

 

[GHT]

Annoying phrases are one thing but perhaps the most single annoyance that I have come across isn't a word at all. It was the gesture of describing something that should simply be a quotation. Who can remember the practice of someone holding up their middle and index finger of each hand and then waggling those fingers as though describing inverted commas, thus mimicking the written way of presenting a quote?

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Annoying phrases are one thing but perhaps the most single annoyance that I have come across isn't a word at all. It was the gesture of describing something that should simply be a quotation. Who can remember the practice of someone holding up their middle and index finger of each hand and then waggling those fingers as though describing inverted commas, thus mimicking the written way of presenting a quote?

" I call it, "air quoting""........" Throw me a frickin' bone here."

 

[Nobert]

I can't help but notice that some of these phrases which apparently get up people's noses are things that I employ from time to time: "Skill set"="Set of skills;" "At the end of the day," just another way of saying, "When all is said and done." 'Low hanging fruit" is something I occasionaly say, usually to describe making fun of an easy target.

Circling back to industry jargon, I had forgotten one of my own bugbears in this arena: the word 'font.'
This is a quintessential example of a term taken out of its professional idiom and applied willy-nilly. As anyone who was in publishing or graphic design before the 1980s could tell you, the word for a specific style of letterforms used as movable type is a typeface. Times New Roman is a typeface. Helvetica is a typeface (one that should perish from the earth, but that's another rant for another thread). 'Type style' is another term, or sometimes 'Type family,' when talking about the whole range of bold, italic, etc.

A font is a somewhat antiquated printers' term that refers to the complete set of characters of a particular typeface, (and sometimes in a particular point size) from which pages of type are constructed. Going back to the days of foundry type, this would have been a case of little metal slugs with raised letters. It is the source, the 'fount' of the printed type. So, it would be fair to refer to the file on your computer that generates a specific face as a font file. But you don't choose a font when you change something from Arial into, say, Bodoni.

It's usually difficult to trace where the courruption of these terms come from, but this one can, I believe, be placed squarely on the shoulders of Steve Jobs' smelly black turtleneck. It has now become so widespread that even older professional designers have pretty much thrown up their hands and said, "Fine, it's a font."

 

[LizzieMaine]

When I learned how to do letterpress printing in the 70s from a grizzled old master printer I was taught with great emphasis that "font" meant a set of type of any given typeface. "My pet raccoon got into that font and threw the type all over the floor." Adding to the complexity, though, the "font" was not the physical case in which the type was stored, that was a "case." A font of type was kept in a case, before which you stood as you composed into a stick.

We young apprentices would annoy him, of course, by just calling everything "letters."

 

[M Brown]

"Close of business"

ok...what time is that?

 

[Tiki Tom]

"Close of business"

ok...what time is that?

You've been drinking their Kool Aid, haven't you?

 

[scottyrocks]

"Close of business"

ok...what time is that?

In many businesses/industries it is understood that there is no definite end of the business day. We go home when the work for the day is done. That is what 'close of business' means in those cases. It's another way of saying, 'before we leave for the day.' I like it.

 

[ton312]

I can't stand when a person asks that I "ping them next week" or something along those lines. I can ping a printer...not a person.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm annoyed by that "extend your thumb and pinky from your clenched fist and wiggle your hand" gesture that means "Call Me." It reminds me of a man I used to work for who wore an aqua sport coat with a black silk shirt, linen pants, and Bass boat shoes with no socks, traveled in a cloud of noxious Ralph Lauren cologne, drove a Miata, and always had cocaine for lunch.

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm annoyed by that "extend your thumb and pinky from your clenched fist and wiggle your hand" gesture that means "Call Me." It reminds me of a man I used to work for who wore an aqua sport coat with a black silk shirt, linen pants, and Bass boat shoes with no socks, traveled in a cloud of noxious Ralph Lauren cologne, drove a Miata, and always had cocaine for lunch.

"...drove a Miata, and always had cocaine for lunch."

I assume you'll be cross posting this in the '80s thread?

 

[LizzieMaine]

This man was the living, breathing embodiment of the '80s. When he died recently it was the true End of an Era.

 

[belfastboy]

The world ‘jargon’ originates from the Old French word jargoun which roughly translates as ‘chattering of birds’, which came to mean ‘gibberish’.

Offensive to the birds perhaps, who are simply informing each other about where to find a decent supply of worms, but it’s interesting that the word ‘jargon’ has evolved again, particularly in a business environment. ‘Business jargon’ now means phrasing and vocabulary that denotes the corporate environment you are in. Something about the sight of plain white walls, banks of computer desks and ‘inspirational’ posters with quotes by Einstein makes us want to start spewing bizarre phrases and behaving in a way that would weird-out our best friends at home.

Thirty years of corporate management, I've heard all the gibberish, the gobble-de-gook and the metaphors. How many of these can you remember?

At the end of the day; Low hanging fruit; Let’s hold a calibration meeting; Tin cupping; Let’s suck the marrow out of it; Tension in the system; I need a single belly button as a go-to on this project; On a go-forward basis; Level the playing field; Playing on the same team; Drinking from the fire hose; Walk the walk, Talk the talk, Walk the talk and Talk the walk; Get on the same page; Get our arms around it;
I’m going to have to noodle over this idea; Deep dive; Thinking outside the box; Drop the kimono; Let’s marinate on this one; Provide air cover; Peel back the onion; Go back to Square 1; Run it up the flagpole; Pushing the envelope; Circle the wagons; Mission critical.

Damn you, I am now re traumatized after you placed me back into every horrific corporate strategy/rebranding meeting I ever attended. Not sure I can emotionally recover from this.

 

[belfastboy]

I had to participate in corporate 'mission statement' formation meetings in the 1980's. We came up with the anodyne...."We Respond". The company's fortunes took a turn for the worse a year or so later and then the accountants took over. Our customer service which used to be stellar became subservient to the spread sheet. Us cynical salesmen added a few words to modernize the mission statement. On our tongue it became...."We Respond.....to Lawsuits"

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

The world ‘jargon’ originates from the Old French word jargoun which roughly translates as ‘chattering of birds’, which came to mean ‘gibberish’.

Offensive to the birds perhaps, who are simply informing each other about where to find a decent supply of worms, but it’s interesting that the word ‘jargon’ has evolved again, particularly in a business environment. ‘Business jargon’ now means phrasing and vocabulary that denotes the corporate environment you are in. Something about the sight of plain white walls, banks of computer desks and ‘inspirational’ posters with quotes by Einstein makes us want to start spewing bizarre phrases and behaving in a way that would weird-out our best friends at home.

Thirty years of corporate management, I've heard all the gibberish, the gobble-de-gook and the metaphors. How many of these can you remember?

At the end of the day; Low hanging fruit; Let’s hold a calibration meeting; Tin cupping; Let’s suck the marrow out of it; Tension in the system; I need a single belly button as a go-to on this project; On a go-forward basis; Level the playing field; Playing on the same team; Drinking from the fire hose; Walk the walk, Talk the talk, Walk the talk and Talk the walk; Get on the same page; Get our arms around it;
I’m going to have to noodle over this idea; Deep dive; Thinking outside the box; Drop the kimono; Let’s marinate on this one; Provide air cover; Peel back the onion; Go back to Square 1; Run it up the flagpole; Pushing the envelope; Circle the wagons; Mission critical.

“I need a single belly button as a go-to on this project” and “Drop the kimono”.
I’d love to be in a meeting where somebody said these!!
My response would not be a “near miss”!
B

Ps: what the heck does “Drop the kimono” mean anyway??

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

I'm annoyed by that "extend your thumb and pinky from your clenched fist and wiggle your hand" gesture that means "Call Me." It reminds me of a man I used to work for who wore an aqua sport coat with a black silk shirt, linen pants, and Bass boat shoes with no socks, traveled in a cloud of noxious Ralph Lauren cologne, drove a Miata, and always had cocaine for lunch.

Totally agree Lizzie, unless of course it’s a Hawaiian, then i say hello or goodbye.
B