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.

Crimes Against English: Email

Crimes Against English is a semi-occasional feature of Hopelessly Eclectic. I use these posts to shame alleged native English–speakers into stopping the senseless abuse of a language that's just minding its own business, after all. For more information about C.A.E. philosophy, see http://hopelesslyeclectic.blogspot.com/2007/01/crimes-against-english.html.

We at CAE are thrilled to bring you the latest innovation in defeating language criminals: the email exposé. Today, we bring you this real example, unearthed by the CAE operative code-named Y-Contributor. The following email was sent from a maintenance technician to the plant manager of a large facility in a major manufacturing company. Names have been changed to protect the clueless.

---

To: (Supervisor), (Plant Manager)
From: (Technician X)
Date: xxxxxx
cc: Bert
Subject: power outage

Me and Bert for a air conditioner to be bad. One of
the condenser cooling fans has a bad bearing we think.
There is 2 of the unit that are not running. The
latest on in the only one that is turned off on the
north side of the building. The other one in on the
south side. There also may be a problem with on on
the paint booth as well. Ever thing was running good
when we went home.

Best Regards
(Technician X)
Maintenance
City, state
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
Fax: xxx-xxx-xxxx

---

After rereading, we realized that we need to emphasize that this is real. The only changes we made were to remove identifiable information. To paraphrase Dave Barry, we are not making this up.

C.A.E.: Business

Crimes Against English is a semi-occasional feature of Hopelessly Eclectic. I use these posts to shame alleged native English–speakers into stopping the senseless abuse of a language that's just minding its own business, after all. For more information about C.A.E. philosophy, see http://hopelesslyeclectic.blogspot.com/2007/01/crimes-against-english.html.

In today's issue, we continue the riveting discussion about Talking Like a Manager. As described in our last installment, verbing is your most important tool to become, well, a tool. Skilling up for verbing takes time, though. (Smooth, huh? I dare you to try it out in your next staff meeting.) In the meantime, the average guy or gal seeking to become the Alpha Suit shouldn't be standing still. Enter the gratuitous reflexive.

You remember the reflexive form from junior high English, right. You use "self" with the appropriate pronoun because you are doing something to or about yourself. (Or somebody is doing something to or about him/herself.) For example:

I have nobody to blame but myself for getting myself in trouble when I recommended to my teacher that she go perform an impossible act on herself.

Pretty straightforward, right? Sure, if you're not Management Material. If you want to fast-track yourself to Alpha Suithood, you really need to flout the rules of English. You can appear more refined and important if you gratuitously tack "self" onto random first-person pronouns. Like so:

Please familiarize yourselves with the proposed new policies. I'd like to socialize the changes before productioning them. If you should have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask Raymondo or myself.

I know I used a lot of advanced techniques in that last example. You may not be ready to integrate them into your Alpha Suit skill track yet, but I believe that immersion is the best way to learn.

In any case, note the gratuitous use of "myself," when non-Alpha Suit types would stick with the technically-correct "me." (Yes, I know that nobody can ask myself or do anything else to myself except me, but we're talking about business actualization, not grammar.)

Note that nobody but an actual Alpha Suit could get away with the following without inspiring quizzical looks and/or eye rolls:

This report was prepared by myself over the past months.

Don't try it unless you're an Alpha Suit... even if you hear an Alpha Suit say it. It is much too powerful magic for Lesser Suits. Your use of the gratuitous reflexive needs to be more subtle, usually dragging in at least one other person for camouflage. But fear not—through careful planning, you too can use this highly effective tool. Here are some examples to send you on your way. Happy selfing:

Everybody but Tami and myself were made aware of the changes to this policy. Can you help me understand why I wasn't looped on this?

I'm not convinced this project would have gone forward, had anybody but myself been the lead.

Myself, I wouldn't have made that choice.

When somebody has a chance, could you fill in Pierre and myself?

The meeting was run by the lead team and myself.

Q: Who built that web page? A: Actually, myself.

C.A.E.: Business

Crimes Against English is a semi-occasional feature of Hopelessly Eclectic. I use these posts to shame alleged native English–speakers into stopping the senseless abuse of a language that's just minding its own business, after all. For more information about C.A.E. philosophy, see http://hopelesslyeclectic.blogspot.com/2007/01/crimes-against-english.html.

Today, I introduce a spin-off of my popular "Crimes Against English" series. It is "C.A.E.: Business"; I have modeled this spin-off to be just like the lucrative CBS C.S.I. franchise—except without the lucre. I hope to release "C.A.E.: Home Decor" soon.

Today's episode of C.A.E.: Business is called Talk Like a Manager. Though the silliness involved is not unique to managers, it is this group that has brought the art of Talking Like a Manager to heretofore unknown pinnacles.

The first, and most crucial, step in talking like a manager is to verb whenever possible. Allow me to discourse on this important topic:

Verbing is a basic requirement for anyone hoping to pursue a career in management. Whether you are tasking a resource with a new opportunity or workshopping a new idea with the executive team, verbing is essential to demonstrate that you can conference with the best of them.

To verb is to lie in wait for a helpless, perfectly good noun to come along, wrestle it to the ground, and bury your fangs in its delicate part of speech. This allows you to establish yourself as the Alpha Suit, strutting triumphantly as you wipe the verbal gore from your chin. At least, that is what the hunter-verber does. The hunter-verber dazzles simple business serfs with verbing prowess.

Most managers (and some non-managers) simply wait around for the leavings of the Alpha Suit's repast: "Did he just say 'you can conference with the best of them'? I'm going to have to verb that too that in my next staff meeting." These shadowy figures are scavenger-verbers, scuttling creatures who spread the language fungus of their second-hand meal throughout the community. Soon, even non-business folk are infected. Eventually, all of the little woodland animals are displaying imitations of the Alpha Suit's plumage. (Well, if the managers say it, it must be Better and More Professional.)

Note that verbing is just one small part of establishing oneself as the Alpha Suit. To climb that ladder, you study many other dark arts, including:

• The gratuitous I: "Yes, I learned that when the CFO was meeting with Tom and I."
• The gratuitous myself: "If you have any questions about the new procedure, please send an email to your supervisor or myself."
• Utilizing: "I had wrist problems too, until I started utilizing an ergonomic mouse."
• Other words that mean something totally different than the sense in which they are being used: "Well, Sydney, I think that sounds like a great idea. Let's socialize that over the next week or so and see what we end up with."

I promise to cover these disparate topics at greater length in a future exciting episode of C.A.E.: Business.

Not everybody can be the Alpha Suit, but you can seem like the Alpha Suit to your herd if they hear Alpha Suit leftovers from you first, before they hear them from everybody else. For example, let's say you go to a meeting with the Alpha Suits from many large herds, perhaps even the Grand Alpha Suit. You will no doubt hear several carefully-designed phrases that are clever and catchy. The difference between these clever, catchy phrases and, say, a cliché is this:

1. A cliché may sound cute and may once have been clever, but it's had all meaning sucked out of it by mindless repetition.
2. A clever, catchy phrase from an Alpha Suit has had the meaning pre-sucked out of it before the mindless repetition that is about to ensue.

So be on the lookout for a clever, catchy phrase. Remember that you only gain standing in your herd if they hear it from you first.

And don't neglect your verbing duties.