Just a note of explaination for Contrapuntal et al.
I don’t know why I used the word ‘gerrymander’ instead of another, simpler one.
I would assume that my thought process was that I wanted to assure the XO (before I began to give him the specific numbers) that I wouldn’t have to “administratively” move people between departments to artificially come up with adequate end strengths. As I spoke and the thought rattled around my head, it must’ve bumped up against the cardboard box holding the word ‘gerrymander.’ The connotation of the word is negative. It suggests moving things which shouldn’t be moved (boundries for voting majorities) and that was what I wanted to assure the XO I’d kept to a minimum (personnel between departments). My brain pulled the word out of the box, shot it down to my mouth and out it came. It was not a conscious decision.
When I was put on the spot, I attempted to explain the word using my understanding of its connotation. With no references (and I was in a bit of a kerfluffle as I was put on the spot!), I didn’t attempt to “define” the word. I was answering the question, “What does it mean?” not “What’s its definition?”
Again, none of this was consciously thought out. It happened in the span of seconds. Yes, I used the word incorrectly if words may only be used according to their definitions not connotations. I poorly defined the word, if that is what you felt the XO asked me.
But I think that in the context I used the word, had the boss known what the word meant, he would have understood me. Though I didn’t use it in proper context according to its definition, many here still understood what I meant.
Aside from all of that, the reason for my posting was his asinine behavior. Though I was the butt of his ire, I still felt the episode warrented posting as it was funny.
Metaphors aren’t definitions either. And according to the OP, he was trying to explain what it meant. Which is also not a metaphor.
Although, I really don’t understand why saying what a word means is not saying what it’s definition is. I think most people, when asked for the *meaning *of a word, will offer some form of a definition. This seems to agree with me.
I’m halfway to saying you got what you deserved. I’m trying to imagine myself using the word gerrymandering in a meeting here at work and I’m just not seeing it. Instinctively, I’d pull back. You should usually keep your spiffy vocab outa the office (well, depending where you work, of course). The typical office meeting should be a series of monosyllabic grunts, punctuated with a little chest beating and occasional flatulence.
Unbelievably, my boss sometimes hauls out his Latin in a meeting. When he’s done, he sits there in the ensuing silence, pretending that he hasn’t said anything out of the ordinary. After about five seconds, he’ll casually say, "You know what that means, eh? Aquila non capit muscas? The silence inevitably continues, as everyone hopes he’ll get the message. He never does. He’s pleased to show everyone his knowledge of the language. My boss shames our department with this foolishness. You really have to pick your spots. I’ll sometimes bring out a hunnert-dollar word in the office, but usually in a self-deprecating fashion, or in some circumstance that makes it somehow acceptable.
Anyway, I’m not criticizing. As you’ve said, you were on the spot. But I figure the Dope is the place to get creative while you’re at work. (Which probably explains my scintillating business success.)
Aquila non capit muscas - An eagle doesn’t catch flies. He really said this one time in a meeting.
Lamar Mundane, I’d wager great gobs of money (if I had any) that he’s not actually fluent in Latin - rather he’s memorized a large number of Latin quotes, and spouts them off. Next time he does that ask him some simple Latin, like “Quota hora est?” and see what happens.
To the OP, I wish you could go ask your boss for that list of words you’re supposed to not use, like Otto suggested.
Actually, my previous boss used the word defenestration in the small print tag line of a banner ad, as a joke, to see if anyone in the company would notice (the banner was on one of our own Web sites). One guy in California noticed, and requested more English in the banner ads. Our office was in France, and he thought we were getting all French on him.
I vaguely remember an anecdote, I think it was included in one of Scott Adams’s books, about an employee who used the word “pedagogical” in a report, whose boss then assumed it had something to do with pedophilia, then made a huge stink, and when confronted with the dictionary, forbade the employee from using the word again.
The saddest part was that they were both in the field of education, and the idiot boss should have already known the word “pedagogical.”
Thanks Mr. B. Y’know, until you posted this, I never looked any of that up, but I couldn’t actually find any of those words except compunctious (which is the only one I had heard of) in either dictionary.com or m-w.com. Anyone with an OED want to edumacate me?
I don’t know why there is such a big deal about the meaning of the word here. I can think of a perfectly reasonable visualization. When fully staffed, departments are all simple little rectangles on the map. When the mass vacations hit, the OP has to redraw the map - one department has a lengthy bulge into another department in order to contain persons A and B of another department. A third department has differing needs and the map gets redrawn again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Gerrymandering refers to the actual redrawing of actual political boundaries. The kind that are established by legislatures, and are often found on an actual map. It is a very specific word.
If you torture logic enough anything could mean anything, I suppose. Such exercises are seldom of any use when clarity of meaning is important.
Why call it gerrymandering when what it actually is is rescheduling? It’s done all the time. Every day. All over the world. Restaurants do it. Hospitals do it. Toy stores do it. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. If “gerrymandering” was a useful description for such a common practice, it almost certainly would have caught on by now.
It wasn’t rescheduling.
I was supposed to have “temporarily” reassigned people to different departments so that the department’s end strengths would match their minimum requirements and allow the folks that requested holiday leave to take it. The boss doesn’t like to do it, but will allow it; I needed to let him know I was able to keep it to a minimum.
As far as I know, there isn’t a word for what I described above but, as I was speaking extemporaneously, and gerrymander was the closest word I could come up, with it popped out.
And when they again revise the OED, who’s to say the context in which I used it won’t be defined? English is a living language and someone has to use words/coin phrases first.
Pretty sure The Chief is just that, in the Navy or Coast Guard. Corporate America doesn’t have a lot of say in promoting officers.
Your XO reminds me of a supervisor (LCDR at the time, though I wouldn’t be surprised to know that he’s full-bird by now) I once had. I can’t remember what brought this comment out at end-of-days (the daily meeting the off-watch officers and chiefs had within our branch of the department to discuss what we did that day), but the conversation ended with him saying, “Show me where that’s not written.”
