April 19, 2005
New frontiers in grammar

One way you can tell you're at an IT conference - in particular, one way you can tell you're attending a keynote address by a CEO - is by the creative use of nouns as verbs. Today's entry: "de-risked", as in "We've de-risked the deployment process". I nearly de-seated myself when I heard that one. And to think, it's only Day One.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on April 19, 2005 to See, I do have a life! | TrackBack
Comments

It amazes me how people in IT create new words to suit their needs. Recently, we hired an outside consultant to rewrite our manuals. The highlight of the proposed revisions was the use of the word "updation" as in "The Updation of a Record". At first I was laughing, but as one of colleagues pointed out, this document is supposed to represent how we do our jobs.

I guess in your case, CEO stands for Crazy English Orator. (I really tried with this one, but that's the best I could do under the circumstances).

Posted by: William Hughes on April 19, 2005 8:20 AM

I'm not certain attending an IT conference counts as "See, I do have a life!". :)

Posted by: B. K. Oxley (binkley) on April 19, 2005 8:51 AM

De-fenestration certainly seems called for.

In high school assemblies, the student audience was fierce in its ridicule of improper grammar by speakers. I'd love to see a CEO try to pull that crap in the old auditorium.

Posted by: Danil on April 19, 2005 10:08 AM

What a horrid new example of what I call the stupiding of the English language.

Posted by: Ken on April 19, 2005 12:03 PM

Ken: shouldn't that be the "de-smarting" of the English language?

Posted by: Dave on April 19, 2005 3:44 PM

I have to tell you, dear, that while it's a very bad example, it doesn't worry as much as your filing an instance of verbing by a CEO giving the keynote address at an IT conference under See, I do have a life!

Posted by: julia on April 20, 2005 7:52 AM