Jargonomics

Jun 24

RossRants , 3 Comments

There’s been a raft of articles recently regarding management-speak and other jargon, which I’ve found vaguely amusing… I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard bosses talk about “leveraging” and “granularity”. But today, after hearing it *so* many times, I just had to vent my spleen about another piece of mangled English.

I am, of course, referring to the ghastly “Can I get…?”; usually when ordering a triple-skinny-mocha-caramel-latté.

Aaaarrgh! If I was the attendant/server, my tongue would be black and blue. Yes, you can “get”, but only if you ask properly. “May I have…?” is more than suitable, and contains the same number of syllables.

It’s not big, it’s not clever – and could possibly get you killed.

Especially if I hear you say it again.

More word play

Nov 1

RossMusings , Comments Off

Following on from this post, and the regular mention of all-noun headlines over at the BBC’s Magazine Monitor, I’ve noticed a marked increase in the number of “verb-ed” nouns.

Just today, I’ve received an email that claims to have “excerpted” a section of another document.

Anyone else got any good examples? I may start collecting them….