# Worst case of "manager speak" you've heard? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 13, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589 "2014-03-13T01:58:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/141 "2014-03-17T22:02:16Z")
“He was REF’ed from his previous employment.” REF = reduction in force. He was laid off. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/142 "2014-03-17T22:06:53Z")
That’s RIF’d 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/143 "2014-03-17T23:06:29Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > And “motivate participation” doesn’t make sense. You motivate a person, not a behavior. In contrast, you can incentivize a behavior by attaching a reward to it. That makes even better sense. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/144 "2014-03-18T00:28:27Z")
Okay, this illustrates the point of the anti-incentivizers: > [@Bone](#): > > Incentivize means specifically using money as the means. > [@j666](#): > > What’s wrong with “pay”? > [@even\_sven](#): > > Because it may not be pay. See? “Incentivize” is apparently used for greater precision in meaning, but even in this thread, people do not agree on the meaning. (I admit I chopped a lot to make my point, but I don’t think I am misrepresenting the flow here.) > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > One could easily turn that around and argue that those who hate the word find it pretentious because “I don’t use it, so it must suck!” … “so” or “because” … ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/145 "2014-03-18T01:06:07Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > And “motivate participation” doesn’t make sense. You motivate a person, not a behavior. In contrast, you can incentivize a behavior by attaching a reward to it. ‘Providing an incentive’. There is no such thing as ‘incentivize’. Nor ‘nutritionize’ when what you mean is ‘feed’. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/146 "2014-03-18T01:19:45Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > ‘Providing an incentive’. There is no such thing as ‘incentivize’. That word is been around long enough to earn its place in Merriam-Webster. It’s succinct, and it’s language evolving to fill a specific need. Welcome to the world of English. > [@Melchior](#): > > Nor ‘nutritionize’ when what you mean is ‘feed’. If that first word existed, the two words still would not be synonyms. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/147 "2014-03-18T01:27:38Z")
[quote=“Maserschmidt, post:146, topic:683589”] That word is been around long enough to earn its place in Merriam-Webster. QUOTE] that hardly qualifies the word as respectable. lots of ‘words’ are in M-W. Read Fowler. It must be a ‘new innovation’. LOL ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/148 "2014-03-18T01:38:19Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > that hardly qualifies the word as respectable. lots of ‘words’ are in M-W. Read Fowler. I read Fowler back when I was young and full of myself, and prone to giving other people advice. In retrospect Fowler analogized far too much to Latin, and in the end didn’t understand English nearly as well as he thought he did. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/149 "2014-03-18T01:52:43Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I read Fowler back when I was young and full of myself, and prone to giving other people advice. In retrospect Fowler analogized far too much to Latin, and in the end didn’t understand English nearly as well as he thought he did. I don’t agree with everything in Fowler, but he is correct about most things. See? Did you have any trouble understanding what I meant? ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/150 "2014-03-18T01:55:01Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > And “motivate participation” doesn’t make sense. You motivate a person, not a behavior. In contrast, you can incentivize a behavior by attaching a reward to it. That would be ‘encourage’ participation. See how this works? ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/151 "2014-03-18T01:57:07Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Who is deliberately using unfamiliar language? These types of speech patterns are _very familiar_ in the setting that they are used. The usage has no ulterior motive other than to communicate. > > I talk about people who work for me or who work on my projects as ‘resources’. That’s a term that has been decried in this thread as well. Resources is a generic term because they could be employees or contractors. They are used interchangeably and often come on and off projects. They are by definition a resource to the project. This is how the _entire company_ describes people who work on projects. Then the _entire company_ is ignorant for not knowing even high-school English. Got that? ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/152 "2014-03-18T02:01:02Z")
Can anyone guess what this means? we initiate, without any immediate consciousness of the action, the most purposive counter-movements and in the process plainly make use of our entire faculty of understanding ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/153 "2014-03-18T02:20:33Z")
My favorite was when “rationalize” caught on. As in “we should review and rationalize our technology stack.” What they meant was “lets look over our stack and get rid of all the duct tape and bubble gum.” What it sounded like they were saying (and I made fun of them until they stopped saying it) was “lets review our tech stack and make a bunch of excuses about why it sucks” - which is what we really ended up doing, because it always turns out that duct tape is going to be really expensive and risky to rip off. ---
**Author:** ![keturah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e95f7d/32.png) [@keturah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keturah)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/154 "2014-03-18T03:05:47Z")
There are perfectly good English constructs to state every buzzword found in this thread. I find myself using-never utilizing, mind!- some of them myself. The general idea, from what I gather, is to make words seem more action oriented and positive. So, you never have a problem, it is an OPPORTUNITY! There can be no financial hurdle too high for a potential partner/vendor to jump, because they are “paying the greens fees”. It becomes tiresome to keep up with the lingo, and more so to work with it. It does not in any way make the news being delivered less grim and certainly does not make the speaker smarter or more influential. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/155 "2014-03-18T03:14:43Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > I don’t agree with everything in Fowler, but he is correct about most things. > > See? Did you have any trouble understanding what I meant? > [@Melchior](#): > > Then the _entire company_ is ignorant for not knowing even high-school English. Got that? > [@Melchior](#): > > That would be ‘encourage’ participation. See how this works? I’ve already given you a note in another thread for similar reasons…this is your last one before a warning. I suggest you stop replying to these threads if you can’t reply at least a little cordially to everyone or take it to the BBQ Pit to lash out at who you want. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/156 "2014-03-18T03:42:43Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Then the _entire company_ is ignorant for not knowing even high-school English. Got that? Does it bother you when the world doesn’t bend to your will? These companies earn more revenue\* in a single day than you will earn in your entire life. It must suck to be the one who knows _the correct_ way to speak and everyone else just doesn’t get it! English is a fluid language. You are wrong if you believe otherwise. \*did you understand the term revenue? ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/157 "2014-03-18T13:42:26Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Does it bother you when the world doesn’t bend to your will? > > These companies earn more revenue\* in a single day than you will earn in your entire life. It must suck to be the one who knows _the correct_ way to speak and everyone else just doesn’t get it! But I _do_, and they are wrong. Since when does profitability have anything to do with knowledge of English? Did I say these people are no good at their jobs? No, I don’t believe I said that. Can you read what I said? ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/158 "2014-03-18T13:53:55Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Does it bother you when the world doesn’t bend to your will? > > These companies earn more revenue\* in a single day than you will earn in your entire life. It must suck to be the one who knows _the correct_ way to speak and everyone else just doesn’t get it! > > English is a fluid language. You are wrong if you believe otherwise. > > \*did you understand the term revenue? Gross income, before taxes, wages, etc. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/159 "2014-03-18T14:41:16Z")
**Bone** , since **Melchior** had been reprimanded for those posts, it would have been better to let the matter drop. And **Melchior** , since you had been reprimanded, it would have been better not to respond. Everyone, stop the squabbling about whether corporate culture is “right” or “wrong” in using this language and stick to providing examples, at least in this thread. Start a new thread for tangential issues, either in GD or the Pit as you see fit. No warnings issued. **twickster** , MPSIMS moderator ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/160 "2014-03-18T16:21:26Z")
One that just showed up in my Inbox refers to a new revision to an existing product. The writer decided to refer to the product as being “up-reved”. I’m going to personally find this person and punch them in the nuts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589.md?page=9)