Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Word word
I have an idea. It's a really stupid one, but bear with me.
Recently the subject came up of outwith, a Scottish word which has found its way into business vocabulary where it is used by people in meetings who want to imply that they are ever so slightly more important than you. "That's outwith our key parameters going forward," they'll say, and still expect you to take them seriously even when they're standing next to a flipchart with 'NOBO' written on it.
The odd thing about outwith is how it has crept up over a couple of years and is now common currency among pompous-ass middle managers. So I thought that we, the Massive, should see if we can launch our own word, with the aim of getting it embedded into the language of our workplaces. The initial measure of our success will be to see it used by an unsuspecting colleague.
The word I propose is Elsewhen. It means 'At some other point in time' which is quite a lot of words to say or type when you're a busy go-getter for whom time is money, so it's exactly the kind of wankery that will appeal to people who think later lacks gravitas because it's just too obvious and clearly understood. Details of the merger will be revealed elsewhen. That's outwith the Agenda and for discussion elsewhen.
What I suggest is that we all use this word in an email or meeting today and see what happens. If no one picks you up on it, use it twice tomorrow. Eventually one of us is going to get an email back with it in, and this is the point at which we should come on here, share it, and giggle about it like little girls. We'll hand round the cigars because we'll have given birth to our own little lexus. The Word word, if you like.
Eventually our baby will grow beyond us and out of our control. But we'll monitor its progress, like the first time it gets verbed (Let's elsewhen this filing and piss off to the pub) and when the kids adopt it (He's like, when am I going to see you, and I'm like, elsewhen, yeah?). We'll beam in parental pride as it makes its debut in a Train Manager's announcement (Welcome aboard this Virgin train which will come to a dead stop for no obvious reason just outside Rugby, before continuing elsewhenly to Euston) and we'll think, that's ours, we made that. My hope is that, a hundred years from now, they'll ask a professor of entomology how the word elsewhen became embedded in everyday speech, and he'll say "How the hell would I know? I study insects."
Go on, go on, go on. Impregnate your workplace.
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words fail me...
Surely
if the kids adopt it, it will be
We'll know our work will be done when BBC2 screens Elsewhen With Jools Holland elsewhen this year.
Great idea!
I'll try it with a couple of e-mails when I get into the office elsewhen. See? I'm getting the hang of it already!
Impregnate your workplace
That's what got me fired from the last job...
Aye , Aye Captain
I have already sent one off to my supervisor telling her she´ll get here godamned attendance report elsewhen
I don't work in an office
But will throw it out there on my Twitter and Facebook.
Terrific idea.
Piss on your chips time, I'm afraid
Over 1.5 million results from a Google search for "elsewhen" already.
Definition here - http://www.wordnik.com/words/elsewhen
Still, I like the idea, all we need is a new new Word word.
I thought I'd invented the word "nadpole" - a slang term for man soup - until I searched Google. Is there truly nothing new under the sun?
Chips unpissed
I've done my research (did you think I just dreamt this up on the spot? - pah!). It's been used in sci-fi and by new age quacks but it's new to the huuuge majority of people. Onward!
I hereby withdraw my piss
Which is a challenge, but one worth attempting in the interests of science. Onward indeed.
Too late...
...chips already soggy. And that's not vinegar.
Another suggestion.
Always put the word 'osintot' in a very small font size at the very bottom of the last slide or page in any presentation or document you produce.
If no-one spots it, don't mention it.
If anyone does spot it, tell them it's there as an aide-memoir for your own purposes, and that you'll explain more fully at the close of the meeting.
If anyone comes up with an objection to your presentation or document, with some ghastly insight you'd missed that will probably be a show-stopper, simply refer them to the mysterious entry on the final page. Tell them what it stands for: Oh Shit, I Never Thought Of That.
A Scotsman asks "Where does this leave me?"
As a Scottishman and regular user of "outwith", does my accent exempt me from the NOBO epithet? Or does any use whatsoever imply that I'm "ever so slightly more important than you"? (Aside: I am)
If the latter, can you advise whether "Aye", "Scunner", "Jobbie" and "Gie Dreich" will similarly be expunged by The Word language police; cast forever outwith the reach of my daily volcabulary?
No,
it's your language, you grew up with it, it's not an affectation.
Braw!
:-)
I'm Scottish too
Are you saying I have carte blanche to use it? I'm now completely angst ridden at the thought of making some awful faux pas.
I too
Am a scotch man. I'm not sure how I feel about this "outwith" villification. It's a completely ordinary word I use every day. I'm not sure why I should be happy about any attempt to replace it, no matter how whimsical. "outwith" this website I've never encountered anyone with a problem with it.
Can't englanders just add it to their rich language and move on?
Outwith twats, obviously.
Elsewhen
sounds like the working title for the next Midlake album. I will use it tomorrow while showing 12 overseas visitors around our facility at work, It'll be international by Saturday.
Nothing new under the sun...
Great excuse to post a clip from a film I adore, Metropolitan. One of the characters proposes a new word; and there's a pay-off later.
Ha ha!!
I got an e-mail reply from someone in the office just now:
"Elsewhen? What the fuck is that? Another one of your stupid Britishisms?"
Ex
cellent!
Great idea, Captain.
Fantastic. Sparvy. Wormish. I'm gangrushed.
Two things...
...(a) also being a Scotch, I have used the word 'outwith' most days of my life. I don't seek approval for this. It is a marvellous, useful word with no precise synonym, being the antonym of 'within'. If others, some of whom may or may not be tossers, choose to employ it anew, the best of luck to them. Rather that than the uninquisitive ongoing cries of a-holes like John Humphrys bemoaning this upstart interloper of a word which is in fact considerably older than they are, had they bothered to research that.
...(b) I instantly recognised the word "elsewhen" from the famous semi-hit single "Dream To Sleep" by H2O. They were Scotch an'all.
D x
Oops
Posted in wrong place. Mispost. Cock up on the typing front. Nuisance. Thunder stolen. As you were.
Cracking suggestion. Rest of you - don't trample on the flowers.
Elsewhen.
SLAP
I think I might have just made this up for texting. It stands for "Sounds Like a Plan".
8.30 PUB. SLAP?
SLAP!
Can't think of any other times elsewhen I'd use this.