Language & Grammar discussion

My favorite euphemism is "pre-owned car" for a USED car. Cracks me up (and the car, too, due to its suspension being unaligned). The granddaddy euphemism is the one that won't let us die. No, no. We must "pass away." Much nicer, don't you think? Dying is SO impolite, after all.

For doublespeak, you need only listen to politicians, read government releases, or be a fan of George Orwell (and who ISN'T a fan of Orwell's?). I like "freedom fighter" for "terrorist backing American interests" or the word "freedom" in any way, shape, or form coming out of that Fun House we call George Bush's mouth.

As for jargon, it's like a viral infection run rampant in many organizations and trades. Oddly, many who speak jargon feel cool and superior -- part of the "in" crowd. Go figure.

How about you? Have any "good ones" for us?

Acronyms are the weeds of business circles and government rhombuses, for sure. Especially annoying is business-speak, where you find such scourges as nouns turned into verbs (e.g. "leverage").

Yes, "strategize" fits the bill (and it's getting more and more expensive)!

American education is full of it...jargon, I mean:) It's become so prevalent that people have actually started to study and compile it, referring to it as ed-speak.

There are acronyms tossed about without any first reference to explain what the letters mean: LEP, ELL, FTE, ADA, IEP, NCLB, CRT, NRT, CPD, etc.

There are all the words used to avoid use of the word failure, such as "needs improvement" "under-performance" and "challenged."

Disaggregated has replaced separated.

Tests have become "assessments."

Poor has become "socioeconomically disadvantaged."

That's just off the top of my head. Sometimes it's really easy to tell that public education is a government bureaucracy.

Of those acronyms, I only recognize ELL (English Language Learner) and NCLB (No Child Left Behind -- snicker). Educators teach kids not to use jargon, then do so themselves. Typical.

One of my favorites from the business world -"rightsizing".

The term "pre-owned" always makes me laugh. It strikes me as one of the more transparent ones.

When I was in business, I suggested "leftsizing" and was met with stony stares. "Rock on," I said. Then I handed in my resignation before Farragut could yell, "Fire!"

P.S. Hi, Sheila! Good to see your L&G font on the airwaves (screenwaves?). You get the idea...

Hi, Newengland. Great to be here. :)

Whenever I see one of those storage facilities with little garage-like doors advertise as "Self-Storage" I giggle. I imagine lots of little selves (elves?) peeking out from under the doors.

Hi Sherry, fancy meeting you here. Those "self-storage" signs always make me think I should store myself.

And going back to NE's first post. I too don't know why we can't say someone died. Is dying a shameful thing to do? Are they any less dead if we say "passed away?"

And lately I've noticed that even "passed away" is too strong for some people. They say "passed."
As if the dead were trying to masquerade as something they were not.

Pah!

While we're passing the time (as opposed to "away"), I'll relate THIS belly-laugher: my in-laws' 55-and-over condo association voted to BAN the use of "Dead End" signs because of the word "dead" (oh, my!). And so, despite our misplaced American loathing of the French, all such streets became cul-de-sacs (translation: dead ends).

Speaking of street signs, I hope I never see the demise of "Slow Children." When we were young, I told my brother the one on our street was put up in honor of him.

Hee. My father used to call the heel end of a loaf of bread the cul-de-sac.

R

Hi, Ruth. You seemed to be having such a good time here, I had to come see for myself.

Euphemisms for dying are many and varied....'kicked the bucket', 'karked it' (Aus), 'cashed in his chips', 'bit the dust', 'croaked', 'gave up the ghost', 'popped his clogs' and so on and so forth! I particularly abhor 'passed over', said in an awestruck fashion, as if the person who died had achieved some amazing feat. The Australians have a particularly amusing one....if I can remember it I will post it!!

Bought the farm... pushing up daisies... 86ed... the big sleep...

dirt nap, gone to the happy hunting grounds, and actually one i thought was sort of poetic slipped the wind,
no longer with us, gone home to jesus, at rest with the lord, and of course sleeping with the fishes for missing mafia, gone to the other side...

Pregnant has got to be a close second to dead in the realm of words for which people require substitutes: knocked up, bun in the oven, expecting, with child, in the family way, the rabbit died, and my favorite -- the phrase used by my grandma to describe expectant mothers without husbands -- "she's waiting at the church."

Big with child... pregnant paused... truly trimestered... fully invested... wombed with a view... bambinoed but good... Trojans lost the war... hole-in-oned... sperm-to-whaled...

Of your ones NE, I have only ever heard of 'big with child'! Over here you 'have a bun in the oven' or you are 'up the duff'!!!
PS....the ghosts have hit my machine!!! NZ is usually trailing behind the rest of the world anyway!!!

More ed-speak:
ARD, at-risk, intervention, TAKS, TEKS (last 2 special to Texas I suppose-- may work for Tennessee and Transylvania too), NSTA, paradigm shift . . . oh, I'm too brain tired to think of any more . . .

In my school....CCC (Children Causing Concern)!!!

SOS... Save Our School.

In my elementary school we'd have SOG days.

SOG - Save Our Grass - were the spring days when we weren't allowed to tread on the lawn because it was wet and mucky and still recovering from the long winter. Our shoes would have torn it up and erased any hope of grass growing green and smooth in the summer.
However, we weren't allowed to stay inside the school either. This left us crunched onto a tiny strip of asphalt between the school and the grass.
Run, frolic, play? Forget it! We could barely even move. God, I hated SOG days!

both my previous and current employer are rampantly acronym-happy. i'm new enough at the current one to not remember any of interest, but the favorite at my last job was PIMP. pretty badass.

and on a business note mentioned earlier, one of my most hated corporatisms is 'synergy' and its derivations thereof. blech.

Here's a lovely sentence I heard a math teacher throw out today. I thought it would have a happy home on this thread.

“You can’t solve equations unless you have the arithmetic skills to deal with the coefficients that have to be manipulated.”

I feel so manipulated.

Makes sense to me!!!!

Similarly, when I was a kid, we would drive by a neighborhood with the sign "Slow Deaf Child" -- I always felt sorry for the child who was slow AND deaf...

Oh I know, I know!

Here's one from my days in the business world - "speaks to", as in "addresses" something. I can't believe I almost used it today, offhandedly.

(i.e. "These figures speak to our overall success in the last quarter")

How about "retained" instead of "failed" for those students who weren't up to par?

From my morning paper:

Because some students and their parents find there's a stigma attached to the words "financial aid," Ms. Wurm and associates have now recommended that the Board of Regents consider calling it something else. Maybe a "Nevada Access Award," or a "Silver State Award."

"The general opinion is if you call something an 'award,' it might be perceived as having a higher status than something being called a 'grant,' " Ms. Wurm says.

That's odd, Inky. To me, a "grant" and an "award" both equate to freebies. Equally-good connotations, in other words.

That's what I thought. I never thought there was any stigma attached to the word "grant." I'm pretty sure that as a college student, I would have accepted any kind of financial aid, grant, award or assistance. It all buys Ramen:)

endangered species
at risk youth
disadvantaged
and those less fortunate (unluky sob's?)

I'm a perpetual college student (currently studying euphemisms, doublespeak and jargon I might add) and I have never heard of anyone perceiving a negative or disphemistic connotation of "grant". If something is granted to you that means you have received a gift or reward for some sort of good behavior. But that doesn't really matter if individuals equate it with poor and if they are snobby enough to think that's bad.

I meant to point out in my last post how ASL has its own euphemisms too, since ASL has been a topic on the dialect board recently. My favorite is instead of someone "missing the boat," in ASL they missed the train or the train took off without them. Don't know why it's different but a conference I'm going to next weekend may discuss ASL euphemisms and I'll let you know of any more that are curious.

Please do, Amy. That's interesting stuff!

OH, that is so good!

Not a toll gate then? Do people get paid for making these up? If so....where do I apply?

This is probably not the best place for these but what the heck! Did you know that the letters in dormitory can be rearranged to make dirty room? And the eyes....they see!

Maybe Word Games? We could make a game of scamble (is that a game?).

ANAGRAMS!

ANAGRAMS (and ANAGRAMPS to make it a happy couple). OK, Sarah. Go make the thread in the GAMES folder and anagram us silly).

Aye, aye, Cap'n!

Did anyone see the Jay Leno bit about the WV teacher who got in trouble for saying trailer trash? Leno came up with the more politically correct phrase of "double-wide heritage." I like it.

DOUBLEWIDE ANAGRAM: I BIDE LOUD

But what about the W?

That's what happens when I rush...

How About:
I BIDE LOUWD :)

or

I wed double

or

woe did lube

I wed double definitely sounds like a tale of woe!!!

not so much

i use it
i understand it when others use it

but good word usage?
stylistic tool?
witty reparte?

not so much

Just got out of a meeting with a bunch of school administrators who were talking about "curriculum calibration" and authentic algebra. Is there such a thing as inauthentic algebra? Is that when the X or the Y isn't what it appears to be?

Gods, and they wonder why parents have a glazed look during these things...