It’s The End Of The Day As We Know It
I was reading Kim* the other day and she complains about the use and abuse of the word “basically” in our area. That got me thinking. I joined the American workforce in 1997, and, back then, “basically” was all the rage in the office. It was the corporate buzzword of the day.
It scares me to think that the word somehow made its way out of the meeting rooms and into the streets. Is this a trend? Will more of the corporate slang eventually seep into our daily life? I can only imagine what it may sound like a few years from now:
“Well honey, you could’ve met a couple more milestones, and there was too much hands-on facilitation on my end, but, at the end of the day, it was good sex.”
“Sorry I couldn’t answer the phone, I was in the middle of leveraging my bowel-movement process and got a bit behind schedule on the timelines.”
“Your son is doing very well in preschool, Mrs. Jones, lately he’s been realigning his approach to other kids and he doesn’t bite his teammates as much as he used to.”**
This seriously worries me. The only way I can listen to this kind of language without throwing up is when I’m getting paid for doing it. No way am I going to put up with it for free. So, I hope it never happens. At least, my son ChinchillaBoy hasn’t given me any indication so far of bureaucratic talk being popular, and he knows all the popular slang of the day. For instance, yesterday, he replied to every single thing I said with the word “Really”. Apparently, for now, “Really” is in. Use it before it goes out. Really.
Some days, though, ChinchillaBoy takes it too far. I once watched him play Counter-Strike on the Internet. His mike was on, so, being the cool kid that ChinchillaBoy is, he felt compelled to talk street at his Internet buddies:
“Yo, wazzup, it’s gonna get all gangsta in here, yo.”
We heard ten seconds of silence.
Then we heard ChinchillaBoy’s Internet buddies laughing their asses off.
Then we heard one of them ask the rest:
“Can you say that any whiter?”
Poor ChinchillaBoy. How embarrassing. Of course, at the end of the day, these guys do not know him personally, so it’s not like they going to communicate it to his friends or the kids in his school. So basically, they can go forward and synergize themselves.
* - By the way Kim, I’ve thought and I’ve thought and I decided I just have to say this. I love your new design, but I now spend most of my workday waiting for your site to load. I’m your biggest fan and, as I stare at all the pictures and wonder what your latest post is about, the suspense just kills me. Just so you know.
Whew, there, I said it.
** - all buzzwords have been borrowed from this post on Almost Lucid, since I could not recall any. Don’t get me wrong, I hear them every day, but so far manage to block them out.
It scares me to think that the word somehow made its way out of the meeting rooms and into the streets. Is this a trend? Will more of the corporate slang eventually seep into our daily life? I can only imagine what it may sound like a few years from now:
“Well honey, you could’ve met a couple more milestones, and there was too much hands-on facilitation on my end, but, at the end of the day, it was good sex.”
“Sorry I couldn’t answer the phone, I was in the middle of leveraging my bowel-movement process and got a bit behind schedule on the timelines.”
“Your son is doing very well in preschool, Mrs. Jones, lately he’s been realigning his approach to other kids and he doesn’t bite his teammates as much as he used to.”**
This seriously worries me. The only way I can listen to this kind of language without throwing up is when I’m getting paid for doing it. No way am I going to put up with it for free. So, I hope it never happens. At least, my son ChinchillaBoy hasn’t given me any indication so far of bureaucratic talk being popular, and he knows all the popular slang of the day. For instance, yesterday, he replied to every single thing I said with the word “Really”. Apparently, for now, “Really” is in. Use it before it goes out. Really.
Some days, though, ChinchillaBoy takes it too far. I once watched him play Counter-Strike on the Internet. His mike was on, so, being the cool kid that ChinchillaBoy is, he felt compelled to talk street at his Internet buddies:
“Yo, wazzup, it’s gonna get all gangsta in here, yo.”
We heard ten seconds of silence.
Then we heard ChinchillaBoy’s Internet buddies laughing their asses off.
Then we heard one of them ask the rest:
“Can you say that any whiter?”
Poor ChinchillaBoy. How embarrassing. Of course, at the end of the day, these guys do not know him personally, so it’s not like they going to communicate it to his friends or the kids in his school. So basically, they can go forward and synergize themselves.
* - By the way Kim, I’ve thought and I’ve thought and I decided I just have to say this. I love your new design, but I now spend most of my workday waiting for your site to load. I’m your biggest fan and, as I stare at all the pictures and wonder what your latest post is about, the suspense just kills me. Just so you know.
Whew, there, I said it.
** - all buzzwords have been borrowed from this post on Almost Lucid, since I could not recall any. Don’t get me wrong, I hear them every day, but so far manage to block them out.
