11 years older, in etymological terms, is a mere blink of an eye. Both are recently made up words.
This description sums up my feelings on the subject:
Definitely uglier.
What do you think I say to get laid?
Not that it works, of course.
I know what it means. It just sounds silly. Why not just say “I have to stop” or “I have another appointment”?
The problem for many in the corporate world is a lack of English reading outside of their field. This is the purpose of a liberal arts education…to expose you to literature of the past and expand your vocabulary, *not *so that you can read Jane Austin without having to look up every other word. It is to make you ‘literate’. And yes, ‘incite’ is the right word if you must use a verb.
http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpgframes.php?volno=04&page=367&query=incite
Note in the etymology, ‘serving to incite’:
http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpgframes.php?volno=04&page=364&query=incentive
Because it communicates a different message. It is simultaneously a more forceful way to end a conversation and a non-rude way to cut someone off, regardless of the content of what is being discussed.
It’s usage is different, so the phrasing is different.
“Ask” is a specific and useful word for me because people’s natural tendency is to waffle around and vaguely imply an ask because the act of asking is socially uncomfortable. I see emails and memos all the time with no clear ask and saying “you forgot to include the ask” conveys a precise and specific thing that needs to be fixed.
eg:
“The north east cooling tower is showing signs of cracking. If cracks were to develop, it would cause the closure of the north east plant until the cracks were repaired. A remediation team would be able to inspect the cooling tower and determine if cracking is likely to occur and possible further steps.”
This is a memo without an ask. If you skim quickly, it seems to heavily imply that it’s asking for something but notice how it’s comprised of purely factual, informational statements. That’s because writing background is always easier than writing the ask.
It needs to be amended with the following:
“We are asking for a budget of $50,000 to conduct a pilot study and determine if a remediation team is necessary at this point. The pilot study would be performed by XYZ contractors for a duration of 3 weeks.”
Now imagine that, except the original document is 3 pages long instead of 3 sentences. I can’t think of another word that conveys the idea with such specificity except by using the word “ask”.
‘Inquiry’, ‘question’, ‘request’, ‘proposal’ all work well there. ‘Ask’ ain’t a noun (except in the sense ‘newt’).
http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpgframes.php?volno=01&page=0337&query=ask
Maybe I’m wishy washy, but I sort of like “I can’t let this meeting run long, I have another commitment” - That seems much less rude (much less forceful and more words) than hard stop.
But then, if I were trying to cement my image as a hard ass for whom efficiency in words was important - “hard stop” would be a lovely way to communicate
I get it, I understand what it means, and I’ve very likely used the phrasing myself on MULTIPLE occasions (I did project management prior to my current sabbatical, semi-retirement, whatever the hell I’m doing, so very likely I said more than once “does anyone have a hard stop or can we let this run long?”) But I also get why it would rub people wrong.
“Close hold” popped up in my awareness last year. As in “That document I sent you should be close hold until the new policy is finalized.”
So saying “don’t circulate” or “limit distribution” is too difficult now?
Or ‘confidential’?
“Question” is a specific and useful word for me because people’s natural tendency is to waffle around and vaguely imply a question because the act of asking is socially uncomfortable. I see emails and memos all the time with no clear question and saying “you forgot to include the question” conveys a precise and specific thing that needs to be fixed.
If you’ve ever worked for someone who uses broken english but likes to sound official, you will understand what these words are:
potacall
antapenuer
eckstablished
Yes, but do you possess the skills to do a “high level deep dive”?
I’m going to promote we go down a path of project sustainability and implement a cohesive matrix and dispense the data out at a high level on a need to know basis.
“You forgot to include specifics.” “You forgot to request/demand action.”
“That document I sent you should be closely held until we learn verb tenses.”
Twenty-ish years ago I had a boss that read a new management book about every 4 months. So we’d all start on Total Quality Management, get a couple months in, then stop that because he just read 14,000 Habits of Highly Effective Managers and he now had a better way to “improve” our product. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Yep. It’s not just books, though. In my field at least, administrators go to seminars and conferences where some huckster [del]cons[/del] convinces them that this new system is the cutting edge in management and will result in big leaps in performance. Then they shell out big bucks to get the rest of the administrative staff trained, and then the staff tries to train all the underlings. We underlings pretend we’re on board until the bosses are out of the room, then we go back to doing things how we’ve always done it. We’re on about a 3-4 year cycle.
That is what I agreed they were saying.
I went through two meetings today, and no-one used a buzzword. I was kind of disappointed.
“Wouldn’t it be great if cancer were cured forever? That’s what our landmark study hopes to accomplish. Our proposal is for a multi-disciplinary team to convincingly combat this problem. We request your support on this matter and we were wondering if that would be possible?”
Has an inquiry, a question, a request and a proposal but no ask.
And yet replying with “what’s the ask?” is likely to only confuse the recipient. Presumably, the listener wants to know the specific kind of support requested–financial, etc.–and what quantity. So ask that. Just saying “what’s the ask” is a passive-aggressive douche move that makes the recipient vaguely uncomfortable and uncertain of what the person is looking for. Maybe that’s the goal, but if so it just reinforces all the stereotypes of bad managers.