Invented phrases

[Ajay]

During a "workshop" we had to build a wall from cardboard boxes, on which we had written our GOBs (Glimpses of Brilliance)

 

[srw]

Dave Gorman's Modern Life is Goodish last night had loads of phrases that have been misquoted.

e.g. It's a doggy dog world

and

like a bowl in a china shop

Talking of invented phrases - I think that's a TMN* to me.

*Refers to @User13710 and explained somewhere on this forum.

 

[srw]

Do you folk really want a minimalist, purely functional language devoid of all evocation and imagery?

how else would you convey the concept of recognising that there are multiple dimensions to the factors that affect what you are trying to do, each factor has a constraint, whichever way you try to achieve your objective you run into one or more of those constraints, and rather than just accept that you are going to see if you can exceed any of those constraints, but not to the extent that you totally break the whole system?



Are all invocations of images from different areas of life to be banned? Personally when I hear hit the ground running I always think of the scene in Blues Brothers where the soldiers jump out of the personnel carrier and haven't got a clue which way to go...


Four syllables. As opposed to, say, it could have the potential to be an idea that makes more than just incremental progress, which is boringly mundane as well as six times as long...


There's been a bit of a transformation in business and government circles over recent decades from seeing the public as passive recipients not deserving any say in what happens, to people who legitimately have a role in influencing outcomes, and if language can contribute to that, three cheers say I.

Don't you folk read poetry?

Up to a point, Lord Copper.*

Quite a lot of the phrases cited in this thread aren't poetry, they're doggerel. Perhaps the first person to say "hit the ground running" was using it in a novel, poetic way, but it's since been used so often that it's cliché. It's a Hallmark Greeting Card phrase, not a bit of Pope.

*And yes, I do know the origin of that invented phrase, and that it's the wrong one here. But never mind.

 

[Cubist]

Not sure if its a 'midgets dick' or a 'midges dick'?

Either way, I've no idea how much in size it refers too

See the dialogue thread....it's half a gnat's cock, or .75 of a Muggelseggele.

 

[Cubist]

As yes, "agile working" is a recent innovation where we work. Two words used to describe the single word "laptops". Why use one well established word when two meaningless ones will do, eh? And to think, in this era of austerity and cuts to public services funding someone has enough time in their hands to conceive and promulgate such rubbish.

Ironically I'm currently "agile working" because I can't move enough to actually get into work....

 

[Drago]

Another example from work from people with too much time on their hands.

"Protective Services Command", although the people that work there still refer to it by its old name, "Traffic".

Ploddleygook.

 

[PeteXXX]

This is embarrassing: I just sent an IM with the words ''that works for me'' when I actually meant ''that's fine''. I think the fact that I had this thread open at the time may have influenced my word choice.

I apologise that this thread caused your ducks to be misaligned...

 

[subaqua]

Oh yes there is...

I drew this on a flipchart in a "workshop" when the facilitator spouted this. it is still on the wall as a reminder not to argue with an engineer.

 

[SteCenturion]

''As mean as custard,'' surely!

As keen as mustard - Shirley Knott ?

 

[Markymark]

Female orgasm. As if.

 

[SteCenturion]

You need to think outside the box.

Or break through the 'glass ceiling' FFS.

 

[Tim Hall]

You need to think outside the box.

"How would you like your pizza delivered?"
"I'm thinking 'outside the box.'"

 

[stephec]

I've just remembered one of the funniest times I heard some management speak.

At a party for a one year old girl I was talking to her dad, we were discussing her present which was a tent/house type of thing which she was busy crawling around.

I mentioned that she seemed to like it and he replied, "yes, she's really bought into it."

 

[SteCenturion]

So bloody good I just screenshot that to show my mates.

 

[SteCenturion]

During a "workshop" we had to build a wall from cardboard boxes, on which we had written our GOBs (Glimpses of Brilliance)

You should have built a partially finished pyramid ...

Proclaiming "where's/what's the point"