“As a society, let’s agree…” (noxious expressions)

This is not the first thread to mention phrases, buzzwords or slang which you don’t personally care for. But it seems like it’s been a while. And I want to again lightly rant specifically about “filler” expressions which are basically meaningless.

After all, at the end of the day, not for nothing, it is what it is. Just saying. After all, agile AI aligns with our authentic brand identity. Breaking bread to bring to the table buy-in on baking in bleeding edge bang for the buck. Circling back to close the loop on actioneering a deep dive into frictionless, game changing customer journeys. Levelling up limitless learnings to move the needle, pivoting to peel the onion and reach out to square the circle. Right? If singing from the same hymn sheet, no need to reinvent the wheel. Wheel 3.0 is streamlined, solomo, and offers snackable content, but unpacks uplevel with unprecedented synergy to bring a world-class win-win which, being in our wheelhouse, thinks outside the box (since we have squared the circle… in 3D!!) to offer exceptional special sauce to the visionary influencer cohort of the Zillenial tribe…

Society agrees? The “whole-of-society response”? In my experience, it might take four people half an hour just to decide where to dine or what pizza to order. And that’s when all of them are hungry.

“Let’s just agree to disagree, o.k.?”
Translation: I don’t have a leg to stand on in this argument, so I’m calling it a tie to stop you from making any more points to support your position.

Anything 2.0 as in, “We have pork 2.0” or during the 2016 campaign, and idiot newscasters thought trump had learned his lesson, he was described as “Trump 2.0”. Stop. It’s overused and annoying.

Not always. Sometimes one party realizes they’re in a pig-wrestling situation and are looking for any kind of out that won’t make a scene.

Alexander Haig once used the phrase “at this juncture of maturization” as a replacement for “now”. It’s over an order of magnitude longer.

“They voted against their own interests.”

No, they voted against your view of their interests.
The propaganda that influenced them was different than the propaganda that influenced you.

I think the obnoxious is when someone makes a sweeping 100%-on-board statement about a 50% thing.

“As a society, let’s all agree that killing innocent civilians is wrong.” Okay, sure, but WHICH of the many warring factions (each of which has killed civilians) are you trying to get me to support or condemn!?

“Why is nobody talking about x?”

The person saying this hasn’t checked, of course.

And, relatedly, posts on the SDMB, in threads which ask for examples of a certain thing:

“I can’t believe we’re ## posts in, and no one has mentioned X!!”

The ‘As a society’ thing seems like it might be code for ‘I would like my superficial and obvious, yet impossible-to-implement suggestion to sound really profound’

I hear grocery and fast food workers say all the time that raising their wages from $10 to $15 (in Massachusetts over the last few years) has caused the price of groceries and fast food to rise by more than 50% making them worse off. So they are opposed to future minimum wage increases.

Sometimes if really is that simple. Many people can’t do math or understand basic economics and are therefore easy to fool.

“At the end of the day” should be thrown under the bus, or better yet, an out-of-control container ship.

“It’s early days yet.”

“It’s not over till it’s over” when it’s mathematically impossible or literally a one-in-a-million shot that the outcome you need comes about. But you will not start working on Plan B.

“You have to admit…” No, I don’t.

My favourite is “We must keep X in the loop going forward”. I asked if they’d done a health and safety assessment of that proposal - tumbleweed.

Board rules forbid me for saying what I really want to say about you for regurgitating that horrendous, corporate-speech black hole.

So I will just be polite, and say that I agree with your opinion.

However I object that you did not choose to “synergise any paradigms”.

I believe a quote from Sir Terry Pratchett may be relevant. From Going Postal :

"You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency and then sent to walk the gutter for [story’s villain] Reacher Gilt, although ‘synergistically’ had probably been a whore from the start."

Well, when you’re synergizing paradigms, don’t forget to leverage your strengths in order that those paradigms can prove a net benefit to your stakeholders.

As a new thought leader I have to say that I am disappointed with some of the attitudes that I see here.

You may wonder in what field I am a thought leader. I am simply trying to get more people to think the thought that I think that I am a thought leader. And I have to start somewhere.