April 17, 2006

Verbing weirds language

Raymond comments on new signs in the Microsoft cafeteria that read “Merchandise your food with pride.” (I haven’t actually seen these signs; perhaps they aren’t in the cafeterias that I frequent, or perhaps I haven’t been paying enough attention. But they totally fit.)

The trend of turning nouns into verbs still seems very strange to me. Of course, the reverse also happens – it’s pretty common at Microsoft to hear someone refer to “the asks”, as in, “What are our asks here?” I guess you save valuable time eliminating that extra syllable that the word “request” has.

One phrase I’m happy to have not heard in years is “Let’s double-click on that.” In fact, I haven’t heard that since Apple. I have no idea if anyone there still says it or not. The first time I heard it in a meeting (from the QuickTime evangelist at the time), I had no idea at all what he was talking about. I eventually figured out it meant, “Let’s get into the details of this”, and was promptly so disgusted by just how nerdy that phrase was that I wanted to throw up. One day while in a particularly bad mood, my boss said that in a meeting, and I just went off on him – which then prompted all of the other managers in the room to start listing the other annoying phrases our boss used that they never wanted to hear again. He was gracious enough to take it with good humor. And I never heard him say that again ;)

Posted by Mike at April 17, 2006 10:12 PM
Comments

Verbificate Away!!!

http://www.firstpaloalto.com/entry.php?which=000764

Just Al

Posted by: Just Al on April 17, 2006 10:38 PM

At EDS it was "let's drill down on that," a reference to our call-tracking software. Uber-nerdy.

Posted by: Erin on April 19, 2006 06:15 AM

Just saw a good one on the new-employee orientation page of my new employer's parent-company:

"If you have a new hire about to start, please reference the New Employee Assimilation Guide for Managers. This guide provides in detail, steps that can be taken throughout the various phases of on-boarding or 'assimilating' new employees to [Parent Company]."

Borg references aside, how about that "on-boarding", huh? Do they call it "overboarding" when they have layoffs?

Posted by: rsl on June 26, 2006 11:38 AM