i have a reeaall problem w/ using ‘resources’ when referring to employees. if you make them inanimate, non-human, objectivized numbers, it’s ok to ‘downsize’ them. the business world is way too full of ‘bottom line’ decisions w/ a vocabulary that eliminates responsibility for the lives of people employed in the business, because they aren’t people: they are resources. cold. very, very cold.
The purpose of life is to matter, to count, to have it make a difference you lived at all.
Well (I know in advance that PO’s some of y’all),…
“Task” can be a proper verb, as can “effect.”
Employees are, in fact, resources. Thinking about them in that manner is a prerequisite for being able to effectively manage that part of their lives that you must steward (also a verb). Holding that view hardly precludes considering them as human beings living with unique situations.
Lots of phrases attain a level of usage that becomes wearisome to the ear; as do individual words - witness “diversity” - they nevertheless facilitate what we once called the “small talk” that was thoroughly derided during my early days (60’s) when we greeted each other with the standards “Hey, brother” “Peace, man” etc.
Those recurring phrases are wearisome, but they also constitute a common currency, a lingua franca, that allows us all to muddle through the day with some degree of communication. They are tiring, and it is refershing when some obsequious genre such as “politically correct” gets rightfully turned on its head. I remember a great controversy in high school, visited when the local proprietor of an SS 396 was being urged to leave remnants of his tires on the parking lot: should one urge: “Get it on!” or Get on it!"
i personally don’t like the bbq pit because i feel it gives people not only the license but also, seemingly, the incentive to be rude, often with little other cause than being in the pit. however, the flashy little monolog above by beatle brings to mind an old colorado saying (those of you who have lived thru the yearly invasion of out-of-state hunters will know what i mean): what can you expect, s/he’s from texas.
yeah, cant, i understand that; but it makes me uncomfortable. we teach little kids that words don’t go away. still, i guess this is sort of like gestalt therapy.
anyway (!), another one that gets to me is ‘trust me!’ seems to come often from people you have no reason at all to trust & plenty to mistrust.
another is ‘end of story’. of course, it’s far from the end of the story for most people who use the phrase!
trust me, both those phrases make my eyes roll back. end of story!
Stay with me folks, I’m certain I’m driving towards a conclusion here, but I refuse to stop and ask for directions.
Baloo
Okay, only people in my own family would agree, but “nar.” My younger sister (who’s 15 - a little old to be inventing annoying words, yes?) uses it to mean “this annoys me.” And since she is an angry, unhappy teenager, she says it ALL THE TIME. You cannot understand how terrible this is.
Also, people that say “like” in between every other word should be taken out and…um, forced to move far away from me.
a poorly composed, long-winded explanation of something followed by
In other words…
If you could have said it more clearly in the first place by using other words, why the HELL didn’t you instead of wasting MY time explaining something to me twice?!?!
How about the use of “to be like” in place of “to say”?
As in “They were like ‘How are you?’”
In everyday speech, not terribly infuriating, but when people are thinking about what comes out of their mouths, (like an argument) it’s really intolerable.
Ex: A) “They were like ‘what did you do today.’” (irritating, but not hideous)
B)“No, no one was like that.” (I had to throw a basketball at this guy)
Maybe the difference is only in my mind, but I see a line between carelessness and outright abuse of the language in there.
“Oh I’m very anal about keeping my house clean” … do anuses really clean their houses? Do anuses even have houses?
“He was so rich, he had money up the wazoo!” … that’s a funny place to keep your money.
“Aw man, you’re always agreeing with the boss; you’re such a brown-noser” … uhh, that’s just an image I could do without.
“That guys been around a long time - he’s just an old fart” … what is a fart anyway? I mean, as a noun? Is it the whole gas cloud? Does it include ambient air or not? Or is it just the sound? And what does being old have to do with it?
There are some non-butthole-oriented phrases I hate too, but I can’t think of any of them.