"reach out", "at this time", and self-loathing

HI!

"at this time" is not completely without use

i use it regarding product availability, e.g. for something that is currently out of stock but will be available again. "now" can carry a connotation of finality, "at this time" emphasizes a transitory condition.

"at this time" should only be used by police chiefs at press conferences in the wake of major crimes

I can easily quintuple the list of expressions that annoy me

last week an assistant vice president invited us "to dialogue" with him.

mr veg has TONS of these from his years working at int3l

i LOVE email speak.

ill touch base with this thread later to see how people are responding.

cheers,

I went ahead and voted.

BBC sports commentators ALWAYS say 'years of age' instead of 'years old'.

I hate myself every time I use "at this point in time" or any piece thereof, at this point in time, anyway.

yeah max otm, where is option "i hate myself for loving terrible people's terrible turns of phrase"

let's roundtable this going forward

I'm thinking it should be sunsetted.

i voted at a high rate of speed

please refer to the whitepaper on this matter

I'd check this thread on a daily basis.

is this an action item?

Please inbox me with your findings.

That being said, we may need to reforecast our forward planning.

guys I'd really like to put this to bed

i was JUST joking about this kind of thing with some colleagues. it was so funny!

circling back to see where we're at. thanks for input! :-)

best,

can you be more proactive about posting?

gonna incentivize the shit out of this poll

unrelated reasons, possibly including hating myself for hating on people who hate on other people's use of language

oh you -- just say "hating people." Submit.

Guys! This is mission-critical. I think we need to have a come-to-jesus moment.

I've greenlighted it.

Let's put a pin in this for now.

what are the deliverables in this scenario

I don't have the bandwidth to read this thread, can someone summarize?

cheers,

*kills self*

librarians get this way about "patrons." I SERVE PEOPLE!!!1

i hate myself for many reasons and occasionally talking like this is one of them

it's a minor but good one. you know what makes me hate myself a lot is writing cover letters.

WORD

not at this time, but at all times

I didn't answer because I notice and cringe at "reach out" but am fine with "at this time," no doubt because the former has only made itself frequent in my life in the last six months, while the latter is old hat. What's weird is that I heard people start complaining about / making fun of "reach out" a year ago, but thought "be serious, no one says that," but now, yep, I hear it.

my life has become a biz-jargon wonderland this year, I kind of love it

Guys! This is mission-critical. I think we need to have a come-to-jesus moment.

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 9 August 2013 22:24 (Yesterday) Bookmark

haha i've never heard c-to-j before

REACH OUT AND TOUCH BASE
your own, personal, come-to-jesus.

cheers,
dave

"going forward"

great to liase with you all,

O.

REGARDS

if you get a serious illness, you hear "reach out" on the phone a lot.

my realtor is constantly leaving me voice mails telling me first that he just wanted to touch base with me. then telling me what he's touching base about.

He's just following up with you in order to close the loop.

guys i hope we can bottom this out in the next day or so

i just want to make sure we've looped in all the stakeholders?

i have an improv'ed kinda abstract bit in this play i'm currently doing based on the way people say "i am now out of the office" or "i am out of the office now"

like what purpose does the "now" serve?

i find it hilarious tbh ;_;

me too ;_;

if you guys could draw that up into a MOSCOW that would be greaaaaaat

wait what is a MOSCOW

Musts (O) Shoulds Coulds (O) and Won'ts

jesus christ

is that what your tattoo looks like when you open yr kimono

in my head this thread was about "at this time" and "reach out", which i feel like are special cases of business speak that have jumped across the species barrier and are now heard in everyday conversation.

Also because they're used more often in the USA right?

yes, certainly. matter of time though i think. i'm bringing back "reach out" at christmas. gonna make it happen by seeding it at carefully chosen bars.

first you really need to define your MVP

i am "on point" and "on message"

thank you for picking up the ball of this thread and running with it

can we put a pin in that?

are there other options? please advise.

Two favourites from a recent meeting with a senior manager: "I don't want you guys to have to drink from the firehose on this one" and "We're not trying to start up a science fair here". Also, I realise "onboarding" has a specific business meaning but I still gag when I hear it.

lol drink from the firehose waht

I can only laugh.

^^ I suppose there's no chance they're consciously referring to UHF?

i say drinking from a firehose. it's useful. although it's probably passing into cliche through overuse.

Possibly a ref to UHF. I had to look it up. My 50-something American colleague may be a fan.

what is drinking from a firehose?!

= wasting?

in my experience, means that you need a bit of information and someone is giving you a tremendous amount of information, at a much lower level than you can/need to follow.

(the please advise thing is so weird because i only started seeing it in business-speak recently, and now i've noticed it passing to everyday life.)

it's faintly reminiscent of cop-talk

"we have a seven two in progress on the corner of buena vista and larchmont, two suspects, please advise"

Yep, firehose = too much info at once. I guess the "science fair" thing is "we don't need to get too technical about this".

drink from a firehose to is getting so much information, so quickly that you can't even extract a tiny little bit of useful stuff.

not just more information than you need, but so much information that it harms your ability to make use of anything.

apologies in advance for what i am about to do...

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd020507s.gif

the purpose of this thread has been refreshed

i've heard 'science fair' as a description of a project descending into pure research instead of having some definite end goal.

Was expecting fieri gif

i've heard 'science fair' as a description of a project descending into pure research instead of having some definite end goal.

Right, that makes more sense. I can't recall the context in which these phrases were used now because the only things I retained from that meeting were these phrases.

i thought science fair was an obligatory investigation into something that didn't matter at all, like "does my cat have a daily routine and if so, what is it?"
that's what my science fair projects were like

"how long can i make this finger weaving?" (not very long, apparently)
"can i make a miniature jamestown wall out of popsicle sticks and styrofoam?" (yes)

i did get an award one year but it wasn't for the above projects

we called it the scholastic fair

i'm putting out some feelers

ew

more than the catholic church did with them tbf

omg

(the please advise thing is so weird because i only started seeing it in business-speak recently, and now i've noticed it passing to everyday life.)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7246/8163703463_73e31117c3_o.jpg

teotm

man there is something so seductive about touch base, you hear it & it is obviously just enormously inappropriate, a kind of messy deluxe business class mangling of language, a detour, & yet at the very same moment you realise that you too could say it, could just drop it into a conversation like it's no big deal, could somehow sever all of your ties mid-sentence & just start touching base, practically catching people on the flipsdie, almost saluting & intoning STAY GOLD everytime you leave a room. it's what makes it so spicy to say, this immediate transference, the promise of a double life, knowing you can without consequence start talking this way & not be called on it, it's a legal loophole, touch base, there's precedent, there is no turning back now.

i LOVE email speak.

ill touch base with this thread later to see how people are responding.

cheers,

― max, Friday, August 9, 2013 5:26 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Gene Wilder tells the warden in Stir Crazy that he wants to touch base with him on some ideas to make prison life better. I didn't realize "touch base" was in use that long, but it was clearly meant to suggest that the character was priggish and way out of his element.

Touch base is fine. It's a useful figure of speech and I don't see it as similar to the meaningless office phrases in this thread. It carries a particular meaning. "Reach out" is more prone to abuse, but it's often OK, too.

I've come to like "deliverables" too.

"Granular" was a revelation.

that's too much of an ask

http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=inappropriate

http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=self-loathing

http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=Potentially