OT - Business Speak

Sewinman
Sewinman Posts: 2,131
edited June 2011 in Commuting chat
I came upon a corker today! The use of 'confidence' in the following context:

"Gave X the first complete emission baseline assessment in the country and confidence a development goal of 50% reduction in intensity by XYZ".

I actually edited it using track changes, only to be told that is how our Director wished it! I am presuming he meant -" to give confidence to a ....", or " help put in place measures in order to achieve a....".

Grammar Nazis - what is your opinion?
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Comments

  • UndercoverElephant
    UndercoverElephant Posts: 5,796
    That's the great thing about business speak, there isn't a noun that can't be verbed.
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  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,387
    edited June 2011
    Can't actually make head or tail of it. There's some commas or something missing. Stumped. It seems to be changing tense halfway through the sentence if confidence is indeed being used as a verb (WTF would that actually mean? I will confidence that in the morning.)
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  • phy2sll2
    phy2sll2 Posts: 680
    Do you 'access a file' on your computer or 'gain access' to it?
  • phy2sll2
    phy2sll2 Posts: 680
    What about 'chairing' a meeting?
  • jonginge
    jonginge Posts: 5,945
    Yeah, doesn't actually mean anything
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  • CiB
    CiB Posts: 6,098
    Sewinman wrote:
    Grammar Nazis - what is your opinion?
    It's the sort of thing that makes me weep openly. Where's Edwardian England when you want it? Confidence a development goal my ar$e. Gnnn.

    Water off a duck's back though isn't it? That old 'any noun can be verbed' really has become a self-fulfilling truism, so that even when something like this smacks the reader in the face with its abrupt ugliness, all we can do is shrug and wonder if the originator of the sentence is pleased with himself for pushing at the boundaries - sorry envelope - or whether he feels like a bit of a prat for doing it. Ghastly. That's what it is.
  • phy2sll2
    phy2sll2 Posts: 680
    I'm not defending that by the way! Just pointing out how widespread 'verbification' is.
  • MonkeyMonster
    MonkeyMonster Posts: 4,629
    CiB wrote:
    Ghastly. That's what it is.

    Nod, person deserves to be put down.
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  • Kieran_Burns
    Kieran_Burns Posts: 9,757
    MonkeyMonster wrote:
    CiB wrote:
    Ghastly. That's what it is.

    Nod, person deserves to be put down.

    I think you meant downed
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  • MonkeyMonster
    MonkeyMonster Posts: 4,629
    Kieran_Burns wrote:
    MonkeyMonster wrote:
    CiB wrote:
    Ghastly. That's what it is.

    Nod, person deserves to be put down.

    I think you meant downed

    Actually no, I meant killed.
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    The Mad Monkey [2013 Hoy 003] [FCN: 4]
  • Sewinman
    Sewinman Posts: 2,131
    Yeah, it is all over the place...perhaps it is missing an 'in' after confidence. However, as he was on about future work I think 'Gave' is a mistake and should have been 'Give'. I doubt the Chinese care though!
  • dhope
    dhope Posts: 6,699
    MonkeyMonster wrote:
    Kieran_Burns wrote:
    MonkeyMonster wrote:
    CiB wrote:
    Ghastly. That's what it is.

    Nod, person deserves to be put down.

    I think you meant downed

    Actually no, I meant killed.

    Whooshed
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  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 19,354
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  • Kieran_Burns
    Kieran_Burns Posts: 9,757
    dhope wrote:
    MonkeyMonster wrote:
    Kieran_Burns wrote:
    MonkeyMonster wrote:
    CiB wrote:
    Ghastly. That's what it is.

    Nod, person deserves to be put down.

    I think you meant downed

    Actually no, I meant killed.

    Whooshed

    indeeded
    Chunky Cyclists need your love too! :-)
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    2012 Felt F65X
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  • gtvlusso
    gtvlusso Posts: 5,112
    It's simply not granular enough for me, I need to see this in the commercial prism and consider all of the synergies.......

    And other bollox like that......

    Some people are, quite simply, w@nkers...

    :-)
  • dhope
    dhope Posts: 6,699
    Kieran_Burns wrote:
    dhope wrote:
    MonkeyMonster wrote:
    Kieran_Burns wrote:
    MonkeyMonster wrote:
    CiB wrote:
    Ghastly. That's what it is.

    Nod, person deserves to be put down.

    I think you meant downed

    Actually no, I meant killed.

    Whooshed

    indeeded

    Indode?
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    CAAD12 Disc
    Condor Tempo
  • MonkeyMonster
    MonkeyMonster Posts: 4,629
    Kieran_Burns wrote:
    dhope wrote:
    MonkeyMonster wrote:
    Kieran_Burns wrote:
    MonkeyMonster wrote:
    CiB wrote:
    Ghastly. That's what it is.

    Nod, person deserves to be put down.

    I think you meant downed

    Actually no, I meant killed.

    Whooshed

    indeeded

    Well, you could have been meaning this...

    downed - past participle, past tense of down (Verb)
    1. Knock or bring to the ground.

    But for that language sin he deserved worse...
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  • Sewinman
    Sewinman Posts: 2,131
    p.s. Can someone explain the fashion recently of people writing stuff on Twitter like:

    'Just saw a flying pig. I am amaze.'
  • deptfordmarmoset
    deptfordmarmoset Posts: 3,118
    If confidence is really being used as a verb, it should be confidenced because the ''Gave'' shows the construction is in the past tense.

    Though insisting on the correct form for a non-verb doesn't really make much sense either. So its use should be disconfidenced.
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  • greg66_tri_v2.0
    greg66_tri_v2.0 Posts: 7,172
    He done did just medalled with the winningest typeshite of the day!
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  • Sewinman
    Sewinman Posts: 2,131
    Another good one recently was 'Leverage Peer Learnings'.
  • notsoblue
    notsoblue Posts: 5,756
    Sewinman wrote:
    p.s. Can someone explain the fashion recently of people writing stuff on Twitter like:

    'Just saw a flying pig. I am amaze.'

    A variation on http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/son-i-am-disappoint perhaps?

    Am I the only one that isn't horrified by all this? I mean, if people talk like this in a meeting, and everyone understands them, then what difference does it make? If someone uses made up words and jargon and loses everyone in the room, then they just end up making a fool of themselves.

    I can only see it being a problem if the decision makers you work with have really bad bullshit detection.
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  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,387
    Sewinman wrote:
    p.s. Can someone explain the fashion recently of people writing stuff on Twitter like:

    'Just saw a flying pig. I am amaze.'

    Is it to signify "I'm such a busy person that I've not got time to finish the word"? If so, it's clearly a lie; if they were really busy they wouldn't be tweeting.

    Twitter: you might as well go and jump in a slurry pit for all the good it'll do you. He may be a 'national treasure' but on this Mr Fry was wrong.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • Sewinman
    Sewinman Posts: 2,131
    notsoblue wrote:
    Sewinman wrote:
    p.s. Can someone explain the fashion recently of people writing stuff on Twitter like:

    'Just saw a flying pig. I am amaze.'

    A variation on http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/son-i-am-disappoint perhaps?

    Am I the only one that isn't horrified by all this? I mean, if people talk like this in a meeting, and everyone understands them, then what difference does it make? If someone uses made up words and jargon and loses everyone in the room, then they just end up making a fool of themselves.

    I can only see it being a problem if the decision makers you work with have really bad bullshit detection.

    My problem is that such words are almost always used to make something fairly straight forward sound very complicated, and thus make the presenter sound clever. I dislike the pomposity of it.

    Thanks for the explanation - my next task is to find out what a 'meme' is...I am getting old.
  • jonginge
    jonginge Posts: 5,945
    Sewinman wrote:
    Thanks for the explanation - my next task is to find out what a 'meme' is...I am getting old.
    Been around for a while that one, courtesy of Prof Dawkins
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
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  • Sewinman
    Sewinman Posts: 2,131
    JonGinge wrote:
    Sewinman wrote:
    Thanks for the explanation - my next task is to find out what a 'meme' is...I am getting old.
    Been around for a while that one, courtesy of Prof Dawkins
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

    Thanks, interesting. Can we think of any Bikeradar related memes?
  • SimonAH
    SimonAH Posts: 3,730
    It's even worse when an influential person misunderstands a concept and the lackeys then adopt the interpretation. There is a stratum in my company that use the word 'qualitative' to mean 'pertaining to a Quality system' Aaaaaargh!
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  • Wrath Rob
    Wrath Rob Posts: 2,918
    If you want to hurt your grammar eyes, go over to http://icanhascheezburger.com/ and read the first language spawned of the interwebs (sic). "I am amaze" will suddenly make sense.
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  • Jay dubbleU
    Jay dubbleU Posts: 3,159
    Sewinman wrote:
    JonGinge wrote:
    Sewinman wrote:
    Thanks for the explanation - my next task is to find out what a 'meme' is...I am getting old.
    Been around for a while that one, courtesy of Prof Dawkins
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

    Thanks, interesting. Can we think of any Bikeradar related memes?

    SCR

    Actually even that is a corruption of the original meaning which was related to the genetic transference of traits rather than characteristics

    Actually science-speak is worse than business speak - try attending a lecture on cladistics
  • UndercoverElephant
    UndercoverElephant Posts: 5,796
    Sewinman wrote:
    JonGinge wrote:
    Sewinman wrote:
    Thanks for the explanation - my next task is to find out what a 'meme' is...I am getting old.
    Been around for a while that one, courtesy of Prof Dawkins
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

    Thanks, interesting. Can we think of any Bikeradar related memes?

    Don't think so, and it's all Wiggle's fault.
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