C.A.E.: The alliance

Hopelessly Eclectic is pleased to report that our Crimes Against English: Business unit is teaming up with Clinton from the wildly funny and suitably eclectic Comedy4Cast podcast to harness the power of what Clinton calls business-speak and we have termed Talking Like a Manager. In his dabblings in the black arts of the Alpha Suit, Clinton has called upon his legion of followers to try to plant a new trendy phrase into the business lexicon.

The phrase: Dog ear
The context: "That's a good point, but out-of-scope for this work breakdown. Let's dog ear that for a later meeting."

The allure of the phrase is obvious. What a great image—turning down the corner of a page in a book or magazine to come back to later. At least, it's a great image until the seven smurftillionth repetition has flogged it to a dry, leathery husk of an expression. Yeeeeess, Smithers! Let us join Clinton in his unholy quest.

But wait! A few reminders before you set off on your quest.

The dilemma of the Lesser Suit
Trendy business phrases are typically bestowed on the humble masses by the Alpha Suit. If a Lesser Suit attempts to plant "dog ear" during a random meeting, the Alpha Suit will be suspicious. Since it's clever, the Alpha Suit may even be jealous—not having thought of it first—and kill it by ridiculing the Lesser Suit.

The Alpha Suit will not have this reaction if he hears the phrase from a silverback of another pack, especially if he believes it to have originated from a Grand Alpha Suit. If you are a Lesser Suit, you can use this to your advantage by planting the phrase in a meeting immediately after you have attended a conference, meeting, or even conference call attended by a Grand Alpha Suit or his minions. This is especially powerful if you are assigned to give a presentation about the recent meeting to your team and Alpha Suit. Liberally pepper your talk with as many mentions of the new phrase as you can.

Dos

• Use this phrase a lot. The sooner a clever phrase sounds tired, the sooner it sounds indespensable when Talking Like A Manager.
• Especially target your Alpha Suit after the initial introduction; he will become uncomfortable at being out of the loop and become biologically required to use the phrase as well, with a Tourets-like frequency and force.
• When speaking to lesser suits, attribute the phrase (indirectly) to the Alpha Suit. For example: "Bob was going on and on about the project budget until Rick told him to dog ear it until the May numbers came out."

Don'ts

• Never explain the meaning of the phrase when using it. That covers it with the stink of something new and creative; the pack will instantly mob and kill it. If you use the phrase casually and without explanation, Lesser Suits who don't understand will feel stupid and lust for the power of your words.
• If you're asked where you heard "dog ear," never answer directly. An incredulous smirk or "you've never heard of that?" will generally suffice. Otherwise choose something smug and dismissive like "You must not have been invited to that meeting."
• And finally, don't try to execute Operation Dog Ear without careful planning. A cadre within your pack may want to work together to find the optimal time and place to put your plan into action.

Listen to Comedy4Cast and watch this space for details and progress of this critical initiative. Together, we can infiltrate the uppermost ranks of the Alpha Suits and bring utter ruin on their accursed heads. BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHA! Also, it'd be pretty funny if we could actually get it to stick.