a 28min Mellotron solo

Language is a living, constantly-evolving thing. New words are coined to describe new inventions, concepts and ideas. Groups of people coin new slang words to make themselves feel exclusive. 'Twas always thus and will always be.

is it a Facebook thing?

with upside dude. We eat what we kill and no time for grazer losers. If it ain't bonused it ain't worth shit - so deliver unto me and I will be the delivery man. You feel me bro? Peace out and - advice wise - go long gold and short AIM.

No, you're absolutely right. It's an abomination of an expression. Yuk.

if you talk to me like that again...

of bollocks- speak. As someone who has trawled these ads for the last 6 months out of necessity, it never ceases to amaze me, the levels of drivel which spew out of recruitment companies. I read an ad today, dripping with meaningless jargon, from which, after reading and rereading several times, I drew the following conclusions:

a) I did not know what the role entailed
b) I wasn't certain about which industry the job related to
c) There was no mention of where the job was located

It would be funny if it wasn't so desperately irritating.

email her - you might get to have a good time

It weirds language.

(c) Bill Watterson

impacting

as opposed to have an impact

or say influencing

Talk gibberish back to them. They don't like it up 'em Captain.

That's how it works *inbox's smiley emoticon*

Is people saying "I've had 12 feedbacks", instead of "12 pieces of feedback." I blame Facebook.

I worked with some consultants who talked at length about the need to "on board" the business. I had visions of orange jump suits, extreme rendition etc. Turns out it means explaining what we were proposing to do. Since this was a travel company this was doubly confusing as half the people there thought it was something to do with aeroplanes.

I avoid TV shows like The Apprentice. The evicted twonk was on Breakfast TV this morning talking about "The Moon's The Limit". A good slap is my solution.

I was listening to a podcast the other day, which was generally very good, until the presenter announced that he felt the need to pause to clarify a point, or as he put it " we were going to have a period of disambiguation". Something wonderful about such an unclear way of saying we were going to have some clarity

really with "inboxing" it's no less irritating than "email me" once was somepeopl and is more concise than say "No it's ok I'm Sky plussing it". Also increasingly many of my message come from a range of sources facebox, twitter, coments on blogs I may read them via my email account but they weren't sent that way at the other end.

The direct message function on LinkedIn is called Inbox. If you send a message through it, you' 'inbox' them. Different to emailing.

I love baseball
I hate business speak.
How did the two cross over so much?
Last week someone from HR called me and at the end of the conversation she said she would call me the next day. Fine. But then she said somthing else and then reiterated by saying 'OK, so we'll touch base tomorrow.'
Not only does she use the baseball terminolgy I hate, she had already used the perfectly normal 'call you tomorrow' earlier.

language evolving in theory, just wish I could understand why perfectly good expressions and words are seemingly replaced by gobbledygook. What do I now though, I still punctuate my text messages.

...in a work environment is the same as feeling the need to look modern. People look dated by the width of their tie, cut of their suit, style of their hair, and apply the same notion to conversation and written communication. People want to sound as up-to-date as possible and using words/phrases du jour achieves that.

I hate it as well but just shrug now.

Our "Team GB" athletes and media commentators inventing new words at the last Olympics...

I wanted to punch them.

...new language and I really enjoy new uses of it. Even phrases that annoy me at first tend to stop annoying me when they become common. Or they go in and out of fashion.

I'm sure it would be much, much better if we just grunted and pointed to each other as in the proper old days, but unfortunately language developed and evolved, so we're stuck with it.

to this thread have said, you can't stop language changing, or being mangled, depending on your point of view. I get the fingernails-on-blackboard feeling with some alternatives, 'medalling' being one, but, and here's the thing, I do at least know what's meant. What I'm not in favour of is any form of obscure jargon, new or old, which excludes me from an understanding of the subject, but, as with the evolution of language itself, that's not a fight I think I can win. Perhaps we should adopt Orwell's Newspeak? Doubleplusgood.

Friend of mine's tips list on writing avoiding business-bollocks.
http://www.daccreative.co.uk/goodcopybadcopy/2011/03/16/25-super-quick-t...

I'm not keen on "my bad" creeping in - some people using to mean "sorry, my mistake". It sounds very much like child-speak to me.

thread that I do with the 'I'm a pedant' ones.

And that is: if you're going to complain about the misuse of language then you really need to make sure your own house is spotlessly clean. And if you know anything about the English language (beyond the correct use of apostrophes, which seems to be the low watermark of self-appointed pedantry) you will know that there are an *awful* lot of rules, and that they get broken *all* of the time and by everybody -- and that's what makes it interesting.

(with up so floating many bells down)

I like the way e.e. cummings made up the English language as he went along.

The use of the word "futuristically" in the sense of "in or for the future". It's horrible, isn't it?

I find its increasingly frequent misuse quite confusional.

lngstc shrtcts wll b t dth f vwls

Language should allow the listener to properly understand what the speaker is saying. If the speaker uses language that the listener can understand easily, then that language is perfectly 'good' or valid, in that it does its job effectively. If the form of expression used by the speaker doesn't match with a language that the listener would find clear and comprensible, that's where a problem is created.

So, someone on Linkedin using a Linkedin-specific term would probably be well understood by other users. If they used that term in front of a non-Linkedin user, the listener would be able to work out what they meant, but there would probably be at least a few moments of bafflement.

Similarly, when I overhear my teenage daughters chatting to their mates ('he was, like, and i was, like etc), I hear gibberish, but the girls and their pals all understand each other perfectly well. When they have a conversion with me, they use different language altogether - they adjust what they say to suit the audience, and so effective communication ensues.

particularly in financial and or legal and or corporate circles. It is designed to be generally opaque and specifically indeterminate.

There's an interesting piece on neologisms and the alleged Americanization (sic) of the English language from Monday's Guardian here.

on 5Live this morning was wittering on about "recruiting" muscles in Pilates. Do, as the cockerneys say, what?

I know this irritating phrase has been around for year, but it still grates when someone says "give me a bell". NO I WON'T! Hmm...maybe that's why I've lost so many friends over the years.