Think outside the box
Pushing the envelope
And that annoying “word”, stick-to-it-ive-ness. (Or however the frig you spell it.)
“Think outside the box” is great for irony. It’s a banal and cliched way to say “don’t be banal and cliched”.
Oh, and “was challenged to” in place of “had to”. Like “Frank was challenged to deliver on the project with limited resources after half his staff quit to find a better job”.
I have to contact students who are not attending classes and call/email them regularly.
One woman who is an executive for the schools was constantly sending me emails to “reach out” to Bobby, or Mary, or Chuck…
Geez - after 10 calls and emails, what else do you want me to do? Send a Federal Marshall to their house to drag them back here and get them to attend class?
So one day, after one of those emails to “reach out”, I responded with:
“I have reached out and called them five times, sent 8 emails and also sent a registered letter to their house. If you ask me to reach out any farther, my arm will be dislocated.”
She never used the phrase “reach out” again in an email to me.
You are confused. Its a baseball idiom. A ball is said to be in your wheelhouse when its thrown down the middle of the plate. Its a pitch thrown in your power zone where you can hit the ball really hard. I believe it comes from the fact that when you get a good jump on the ball the full swing is in a long circular pattern like spinning a big old fashioned ships wheel. Not a short quick swing like when you are swinging at a bad pitch.
Huh?
just kidding or JK
My teenage daughter uses this all the time, whenever she is incorrect or need to change something she has said. It is practically punctuation.
Me - Do you have any homework tonight?
Her - Nope.
She thinks for a minute
Her - JK forgot I have Math.
You were not kidding, you were incorrect.
I hate dismissive discussion-squelchers. Period. End of Story.
People who say “I’ll double check” after being asked something for the first time.
You’re not double checking if you’ve never checked previously!
It’s a long stretch for a baseball idiom too. To then mangle it into a synonym for ‘purview’ is just idiotic.
Though I’d love to see hitter’s saying, “The pitch was in my purview so I knocked it out of the park.”
I know, and mostly hate purview because of a few snooty big word users who employ it in the most snootiest of snooty ways.
Snooty people suck.
A lot less of a stretch than cheese or can of corn.
Thanks though. Now, upon spying an attractive female, I can say, “She’s in my wheelhouse”, because the previous idiom was getting a bit long in the tooth.
“Hit the ground running”,
“…need to be proactive”,
“Metrics”
‘Reach out’ is just horrible. So is ‘going forward’.
The elephant/gorilla/800-pound gorilla in the room, blah blah blah
Long story short…is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling.
I had always assumed it meant an easy pitch that was as easy to aim where you wanted as a ship with a wheel was.
The one I have is rather narrow in usage -
I fly a lot (a lot) and flight attendants have to make a number of announcements during the flight. It has become common for them to use the phrase “Once again -” at the beginning of every single sentence they utter.
I guess I understand that it has a variety of meanings for them, it’s often used in place of “I SAID!” or “HEY MORON I’M TALKING TO YOU!” As in, “Once again - the captain has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign and asks everyone to please remain seated.” - translation - “YOU IN THE YELLOW SWEATSHIRT - SIT DOWN!”
But really, they use it for every sentence! “Once again, we will be landing shortly. Once again, please turn off all electronic devices. Once again, this means anything with an on-off switch has to be turned off. Once again, you will be able to use your cell phones once we have landed. Once again, you may not use laptops while we are taxi-ing in to the gate. Once again…”
Not a phrase, just a buzzword: I’m seeing “enterprise” in all sorts of ways lately that are absolutely meaningless AFAICT. We’re going through a big reorganization here, and everything’s enterprise this and enterprise that.