I hate “To the extent that”. My boss uses it all the time. I have no idea what it means. Two pieces of silliness common in sports writing, in particular: prideful instead of proud resiliency instead of resilience
philip.platt Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My first manager looked a financial report that I > wrote and I used the word “ensure” - she adamantly > said that this wasn’t a word and she crossed it > out in red and put “insure”. She made me print out > all of my analysis documents and corrected them in > a thick red pen like it was grade school or > something before sending them to clients/execs. > > I corrected the report and kept the word ensure on > there - I thought she made a mistake in the > correction. I told her I looked the word up and my > usage was correct. She about tore off my head and > told me “not to make up stories about looking a > word up if I didn’t really look it up”. > > I thought she was bat crazy at this point. She > went on her rampage about how she was an english > undergrad major and knew all about words and > writing. I didn’t mean to be mean or arrogant, but > I told her that maybe we should look up the word > while we were in her office just so I don’t have > to modify the report again and so we could submit > the thing. > > She was outraged and said she didn’t want to waste > her own time looking up words in the dictionary, > but she would look it up quick just so that we > could fix this report. So I pull up a chair to her > computer and she looks up what ‘ensure’ really > means and gets really pissed at me. I see the same > thing that she is looking at on the screen, which > basically says what I was telling her and then she > says to change it to another synonym other than > ‘ensure’ because she just doesn’t like that word. > Also, she says that she never ever wants to see > the word ‘ensure’ in any email or report ever > again because she just doesn’t like that word. > > f-ing crazy bosses . crazy. Lol. Good story.
Just got an email from the boss asking me to add the word net in front of book value because it will confuse everybody into thinking that when I mean $5million book value they won’t realize that its net and might assume that it has already depreciated to zero. I mean wtf, what happened to applying common sense in the workplace?
maratikus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I really don’t like spelling of “definately” and > misuse of “its” and “it’s”. I confess to catching myself writing “it’s” when I really mean “its,” though I don’t think I ever write “its” when I really mean “it’s.” I am not a big stickler for that one (though I still insist on correcting it when editing). “Its” is harder than most, because it is a posessive pronoun, yet the 's particle signifies the posessive case on ordinary nouns. Thus you can easily fall into thinking “it’s” signifies the posessive case of “it,” when in fact “its” is an exception to the rule. On the other hand, “it’s” is a contraction, which requires an apostrophe normally, so you shoul never have a problem confusing it with “its.” Using 's to signify plural is definitely a big faux-pas, although I think it is sometimes allowed when used with acronyms.
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Using 's to signify plural is definitely a big > faux-pas, although I think it is sometimes allowed > when used with acronyms. It’s technically incorrect but very common. Better is ATMs, CEOs, 1980s, etc.
Some of these spelling errors are just egregious and ridiculous. We need to take all of these people’s desks downstairs into Storage B.
“at that point of time” instead of “at that point in time” … Using “and the bottom line is…” in every possible sentence … Also hate when people signal ’ " ', by raising both hands and make an inverted comma in the air repeatedly …
ZeroBonus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I mean wtf, what happened to applying common sense > in the workplace? I agree.
#1 Gunner Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This is a good brainstorming session. > > We are thinking vertically to flush out (drill > down) the critical issues by thinking outside the > box. > > At the end of the day we can unleash some key > deliverables to use going forward. > > We’ll need to touch base again to address the > metrics from today’s action items used to > determine the success of our synergy. > > Keep up the team work. Well done. You’ve obviously played the consultancy noughts and crosses game. For those that haven’t played it, draw up a noughts and crosses grid. Write in the expressions. Listen to the consultants. If you get a line you win. Makes a boring session go much quicker. It’s a win-win situation…
I am a grown man therefore I have never used the world googled. I do not use any sort of abbreviations in my text messages (as I mentioned in the previous sentence, I am a grown man). I have to review my teams reports so I am always on the look out for this sort of stuff. I make my team read the following at least twice a year. http://mla.stanford.edu/Politics_&_English_language.pdf Readability is a dying art. Orwell has to be the most readable writer ever. The sections on pretentious diction and meaningless words are especially impactful.
nice link, reading it now. This is like grammar girl without the hot sounding asian whispering in your ear.
A word that drives me crazy is thru. Is this supposed to be an informal way to say through? Is there a distinction between thru and through?
the granularity in this thread isn’t very transparent
Ahahahaha, check out page 412 V2 of CFAI L3 texts, very bottom it reads: “The marketability of investments is important to insure ample liquidity.” Mwahahahaha, its even better because its in the Insurance IPS section of the reading!!!
Obligated is a word…I don’t know what dictionary you are reading.
Haha, awesome Bchad. The guys I work with don’t do bizspeak, we just grunt and get sh@t done. I don’t show up to meetings that are full of bs cause I don’t like that, which drives them crazy cause they can’t share all their awesome new words with me. They stop by my desk and ask if I’ll be joining their bs meeting and I say no. Then they make a joke to ease the tension and walk away. Later people get out of the meeting and tell me how bs it was and how I was lucky I didn’t go. Dood why does anyone go? Cmon man. We meet today in obligation to assign a task force to assess the potential impactfulness of events preceeding or following the future possible outcome of some whatever and to insure our supossed preparedness. Wow we sound smart!
I just heard a sportscaster say “These are the two ‘SCORINGEST’ teams in the league.” I just about sprayed a full mouthful of coffee into my keyboard when I heard that bit about the two highest scoring teams being the “scoringest.” That’s absolutely laughifying!
> philip.platt Wrote: > My first manager looked a financial report that I wrote and I used the word “ensure” - > she adamantly said that this wasn’t a word and she crossed it out in red > and put “insure”. Holy cow I just got done reading this story and about peed my pants. LMAO. Ego trip.