I’m a well-known logophile, and while I try not to use words like “logophile” in a business setting so as not to look like a pedant, I love to use precise, well-known words which convey meaning specifically. Oddly, I get a feeling of accomplishment to see these words catch on with my co-workers.
For example, a few weeks ago I asked about the standard “nomenclature” for a set of software tools our area produces. Conversation about “tool names” had been going on for a while, so the introduction of nomenclature was met with murmurs of approval all around. Later, I overheard one of them talking to another coworker about the need for a standard nomenclature since our catalog was growing. I smiled.
Anybody else introducing terminology in the workplace?
I think I’m responsible for a sharp spike in the use of an odd word here. Does that count?
I was in documentation/tech writing/communications/marketing support for most of my corporate career, so I was the point source of many specific word-usages. As a logophile myself, preferring lightning to lightning bugs, I was not shy about maintaining correct nomenclature in meetings and product discussions.
Until my boss used the word ‘para-diggem’ in a meeting, at which point many of us found our notepads very, very, very interesting.
This is pretty silly, but I’ve gotten a bunch of cowworkers saying “toodles” or “toodleloo” when they leave.
I’m also a big fan of tertiary, but it’s not catching on around the office.
We’ve had some similar incidents around here, usually with management. Poractive instead of proactive is my favorite. How do you correct something so priceless?
For me it was fungible. I was asked why, with 6 weeks left in a 2 year project, I couldn’t reduce that final 6 weeks to 4 weeks by adding more programmers. I said, “Engineers aren’t fungible.” The word, and the phrase, became popular for awhile at that company.
I can’t say it caught on but I remember a co-worker who was annoyed at me for using the word innocuous in a report. He claimed first that I had made it up and then, after I showed it to him in a dictionary, that nobody would know what it meant.
At the same company, I was the designated screamer. Both the boss and I hated newspeak, and it was publicly announced that if anyone used certain words in a meeting, I got to scream.
I worked with many who English is their second language. So when I used “cockeyed” in a meeting, it caused a murmur, then a request for definition, then enthusiastic widespread usage and acceptance all the way up to the executive level.
Lacunae, as in “your explanation of the procedures has several lacunae that need to be filled in.” You see, I even practically explained what it meant by the phrase at the end of the sentence. Still, it didn’t catch on.
I just introduced my CEO to the word synecdoche - fun times. He referenced one of our product offerings not by its name, but by one of its attributes. I said “nice synecdoche” and he stopped and said “wha?”
By the same token, during another conversation, I invoked a quote from Oscar Wilde “If I had more time, I would’ve written a shorter letter” and he showed me how that quote, while attributed to Wilde, has also been attributed to many others going back well before him.
Cool learning goes in both directions.
…and don’t get me started on using Weltanschauung (“worldview”) in strategy meetings…
We’ve had some similar incidents around here, usually with management. Poractive instead of proactive is my favorite. How do you correct something so priceless?
