"Occupy" Wall Street

Occupying Word Street

October 14, 2011

By Ben Zimmer

The public protest over economic inequalities known as "Occupy Wall Street" has been going on nearly a month now, with the original demonstration in Manhattan's Financial District spreading to cities around the world. Thanks to the success of the movement, the lingo of the protesters has spread quickly, with the verb occupy in particular becoming a kind of rallying cry.

Occupy and occupation first became part of the language of protest in September 1920, when factory workers in Italy held strikes against working conditions. About 600,000 workers took control of the factories, and the movement was known in Italian as l'occupazione delle fabbriche, or "the occupation of the factories." The earliest evidence in the Oxford English Dictionary for the relevant senses of occupy ("to gain access to and remain in...without authority, as a form of protest") and occupation ("the action of occupying a work place, public building, etc., as a form of protest") come from reports of the 1920 Italy protests. Another term for protest-style occupation, the sit-in, has been in use since 1937, though it really took off in the '60s, along with such spin-offs as the teach-in and the be-in.

Occupy Wall Street has its origins in a call for action on July 13 by Adbusters Media Foundation, an anti-consumerist group of "culture jammers" based in Vancouver. "On September 17," the announcement read, "we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months." Adbusters made an explicit analogy to the protests of the Arab Spring, asking, "Are you ready for a Tahrir moment?" That's a reference to Cairo's Tahrir Square, the focal point of Egypt's anti-Mubarak protests. Another group involved with the planning of the September 17 protest dubbed it the U.S. Day of Rage.


As with many other grassroots movements these days, Occupy Wall Street got the word out via social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Meetup. On Twitter, the hashtag #occupywallstreet circulated in the leadup to September 17, often shortened to #ows. Protesters dug in for the long haul by taking over Zuccotti Park, a privately owned park not too far from Wall Street. (Zuccotti Park was originally known as Liberty Plaza Park, and the OWS crowd has tended to call it "Liberty Park.") As news spread of OWS, similar protests sprang up in other cities around the country, going by the labels Occupy Boston, Occupy Philly, and so forth. The website Occupy Together became a hub for coordinating the demonstrations in the U.S., while activists in cities around the world followed suit. Of course, there have also been parodies, like Occupy Sesame Street.

The demonstrators usually call themselves occupiers, though they've also been called occupants or even occupationistas. And with the growth of the movement, the verb occupy no longer requires "Wall Street" or any other object to follow it. About a week after the OWS demonstration began, in late September, people were already talking about "the Occupy protests" and "the Occupy movement." In a newspaper created for OWS, the Occupy Wall Street Journal, a list of "5 Things You Can Do Now" begins with #1: "Occupy! Bring instruments, food, blankets, bedding, rain gear, and your friends." To occupy can now be used as an intransitive verb meaning to take part in the Occupy protests. (Naturally, the hashtag #occupy has taken off on Twitter in recent weeks.)

Beyond the talismanic power of occupy, other words and phrases have become firmly linked to the movement. One popular slogan, "We are the 99%," began as a Tumblr feed with the message, "We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything." The "99 percenters" have been met by the "53 percenters," conservatives who instead focus on the 53 percent of households that pay federal income tax.

At the center of the action, in Zuccotti Park, the leaderless (and some would say message-less) protesters have developed their own terminology and practices for their experiment in "participatory democracy." At the OWS "general assembly," participants have overcome the ban on amplified sound by using what has been dubbed "the human microphone" or "the people's mic": after a speaker says a few words, those nearby repeat what was said in unison. Then those a bit further away repeat what the first group said, amplifying the message across the entire crowd. To register approval for a point under discussion, the occupiers use a hand-signal system that has been called "jazz hands" or "twinkling": those in agreement wave their hands with fingers pointed upward in silent applause. This hand-signal system has been used in the past by grassroots groups in Europe, such as Seeds for Change and Climate Camp.

As the protests continue to spread around the world (Occupy protests are scheduled to take place in 25 countries on October 15), the political impact becomes more profound, as does the linguistic impact. If the movement does have lasting consequences, we could be looking at occupy as a strong contender for the 2011 Word of the Year.

Update: You can hear more of my thoughts about the word occupy on the National Public Radio show "On the Media."

Source: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3001/?utm_source=rss

New Words in the Oxford Dictionary

Schmick new words added to Oxford Dictionaries Online

1 June 2011

We’ve managed to spare a few femtoseconds in our busy schedule to add some schmick new words to Oxford Dictionaries Online. Whether you enjoy crafting, free running, or just surfing the Internet on your lappy, you’re sure to find something to interest you amongst the new additions.

The world of computers and social networking continues to be a major influence on the English language, with the introduction of badware, social graph, and network neutrality into our dictionary. And if you thought a breadcrumb trail was only useful to Hansel and Gretel – think again. The new additions also hint at the danger of sneaking a peek at the Twittersphere or other social networks whilst at work – not everyone is thoughtful enough to add the NSFW warning!

The new words aren’t all about technology though: fashion and relationships also play an important role. If you’re a bridezilla, why not start getting ready for the big day with a mani-pedi? You could also show your green credentials by wearing an eco-chic dress zhooshed up with some accessories. Let’s hope the groom-to-be doesn’t get man flu on the wedding day though, otherwise you may struggle to drag him from his man cave. At least you can rely on the support of your bestie, although the fact that she’s a recent dumpee might quell her enthusiasm for such a romance-laden event.

However, there’s no point in panicking. Instead, why not put your feet up or, better still, have a lie-down on your memory foam mattress, watch an old-timey film on your plasma TV, and relax? Because even if it all goes horribly wrong on the day, you may get the chance for a do-over in the future …

Explore a selection of the new words and phrases added to Oxford Dictionaries Online, from bankster to ZOMG.

Source: http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/newwords_may2011_us

New Entries to Oxford Dictionary

From BOLO to ZOMG

Monday, June 06, 2011

 

The latest list of new additions to Oxford Dictionaries Online is a veritable smorgasbord of delights. You can find new words linked to the global economic crash, so you get casino banking and the bunch of banksters who got us into it. You get words and phrases to do with fashion and lifestyle - mani-pedi and awareness bracelet - but above all you get masses and masses of words to do with new technology - breadcrumb trail, NSFW and permalink being obvious examples.

The range of word formation processes is interesting too, with plenty of blends (bridezilla) and compounds (lifehack), a whole load of affixation taking place (cyber-, perma- and eco- being popular prefixes), and the odd shortening with silly addition at end (laptop becomes lappy).

The full list is here and the accompanying article here.

Edited to add: there's a piece by Lucy Tobin in yesterday's Evening Standard, featuring some dubious commentary from a certain "language researcher" at UCL. Is posting this here, the definition of egosurfing? I'm not sure I quite get why it's newlogism rather than neologism..

Source: http://englishlangsfx.blogspot.com/2011/06/from-bolo-to-zomg.html

Simon Heffer - Prescriptivism at its finest and saddest: Common Mistakes

Strictly English: Part one

The first of four exclusive extracts from ‘Strictly English: the Correct Way to Write... and Why It Matters’ points out some common mistakes

Simon Heffer: 'It is perhaps unfortunate, but we judge people often by how they speak or write' 

By Simon Heffer

4:42PM BST 20 Aug 2010

Even when armed with fine intentions, one can still fall into traps: for many words do not mean what one thinks they mean. In the interests of accuracy and precision, what follows is a reminder of the true meaning of some commonly misused words.

One occasionally reads in newspapers about people who have died or been injured in a car that has collided with a tree. This is remarkable, because a collision requires both parties to it to be in motion. The Latin verb collidere means to strike or clash together, and the etymology is strict. So two moving vehicles may collide, as may a car and a cyclist or even a car and a pedestrian, but not a car and a tree. Like so much of our language this is a question of logic based on the etymology; there is no perversity about it.

One should take care in using the verb contradict. For there to be a contradiction there has to be a statement, for a contradiction is a categorical statement in opposition to another. If one person says “the dog is black” when it is obvious that the beast is white, then to affirm its whiteness is a contradiction; and one may say: “I contradicted his assertion that the dog was black.” However, if what one is taking issue with is not a statement, but a suggestion, or advice, or a conjecture, then one does not strictly contradict it: one rejects it, disputes it, contests it, ignores it, doubts it.

Another word that people insist on wrenching from its correct etymology is decimate. As every schoolboy knows, this was a punishment meted out to Roman legions, in which every 10th man was killed. Its correct sense in English, therefore, is the reduction of the strength of a body of people by 10 per cent. It does not mean more or less than that, though it is often used to describe the near elimination of a contingent, and has been wrongly used now for more than 100 years. The greatest absurdity of all is a statement such as “the workforce was decimated by 20 per cent”, followed closely by “the town was decimated completely”.

In his speech in Chicago in 2008 on the night he won the United States presidential election, Barack Obama spoke of the enormity of the task ahead of him.

I am unclear whether this is now accepted American usage to describe something that is enormous. The word is used in such a fashion here, and appears to be one of those whose wrong usage has been accepted by some dictionaries (though not by the OED). An enormity, in its first current usage given by the dictionary, is a “deviation from moral or legal rectitude”: though it does concede that, influenced by enormous, it can mean “extreme or monstrous wickedness”. So an enormity is something bad, a transgression: it is not simply something big. One should speak not of the enormity of the task, but of its enormousness: even if one is President of the United States.

Educated writers will use the phrase “a fraction of the cost went towards overheads” without thinking of its logic.

What such writers inevitably mean is a small fraction, which although still vague is a perfectly acceptable statement. However, they forget that nine tenths is also a fraction, and so to use the noun without qualifying it with an adjective is almost meaningless.

Part of the problem with the interference of the state in our lives, and the apparent ubiquity of its bureaucrats, is that many of us find ourselves using – or misusing – the jargon of officials in our everyday language.

We use the word inquiry when we mean question or query. An inquiry is really a formal investigation, usually conducted by a judge or senior official into some aspect of government activity or something for which the state has ultimate responsibility.

Individuals should not say that they have an inquiry; they have a question, or a query.

Literally is one of the more abused words in our tongue. Should you find yourself about to write it, pause and consider whether it is really necessary; it almost never is. One hears people say “he literally jumped out of his skin”, when we all know full well he did nothing of the sort. Yet literally, according to the dictionary in this sense, means “with exact fidelity of representation”. One cannot say “he literally died” unless he is dead, and died as a result of the event being described; but people do say it when “he” still lives and breathes.

To make matters worse, circumstances in which one could use the adverb accurately would almost always render its use tautological. If one has fallen down the stairs, nothing is added to the statement “I fell down the stairs” by extending it to “I literally fell down the stairs”.

So avoid this usually pointless, and often silly, word.

*Next week: Why jargon is ruining the language

Strictly English: the Correct Way to Write… and Why It Matters
by Simon Heffer (Random House, £12.99 T £11.99) is published on September 9

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7956023/Strictly-English-Part-one.html

Online English, Quotes

Online English: some interesting links

Posted by Laine Redpath Cole on September 19, 2011

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We’re into our second week of online English and I thought it might be useful to put a few of the more interesting comments, articles, thoughts on online English in a post for your perusal

2006: Of course, online English is closely tied into the subject of Global English, and David Crystal is the man to read in both cases. Clare Dudman has an interesting review of David Crystal’s thoughts in this post on her blog. The post is a few years old, but very interesting:

The internet, David Crystal says, is ideal for the linguistic addict. It is the latest of the major linguistic revolutions: the first was speech – about 100 000 years ago, the second was writing (separately evolved in different parts of the world 10 000 years ago) and the deaf sign language – no one knows when this evolved – maybe 500-600 years ago, but maybe much earlier.

2009: Laura Barton of the Guardian shared some of her favourite internet contributions to the language in this short article:

The meanings of well-known words (bookmark, surf, spam, web) have shifted dramatically, while our vocabularies have expanded to accommodate new ones. The lower-case is in ascendance, @ has flourished, the full stop has been reinterpreted as the “dot” and entire trends have been refreshed by the prefix “cyber”.

2010: Sometimes, online English is like a foreign language for other native speakers. Do you know what rickrolling means?:

Christopher Poole, founder of anarchic image message board 4Chan, had been called to testify during the trial of the man accused of hacking into US politician Sarah Palin’s e-mail account.
During the questioning he was asked to define a catalogue of internet slang that would be familiar to many online, but which was seemingly lost on the lawyers.

If you are one of those who needs internet terms translated, there’s a dictionary for you.
2011: Now that we’ve had so long to think about it, how is the internet really changing English? Is it serious?

“What people mention when they lament the ‘deterioration of language’ is people straying from supposed grammar rules,” Douglas Bigham, editor-in-chief of Popular Linguistics magazine, said. “The truth of the matter is that these supposed ‘rules’ were never really ‘rules’ to begin with.”

2011: We must also, of course, revisit this juicy question: Is the Internet Americanizing British English?

Take “I guess”, in the American sense of “I suppose”. One occasionally hears the phrase used that way in Britain, but always with the aura of a foreign import, like “sure”, to mean “yes”. But here’s the thing: go back to Chaucer, and you will find “I gesse” used exactly as the cousins now use it. You will, likewise, still hear “gotten” in parts of Lancashire and even, in some Dorset and Somerset villages, “fall” to mean autumn.

Perhaps by the time NELL has finished reading EVERYTHING, we’ll have an answer to all of our questions. My money is on 42.

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/online-english-some-interesting-links

Neutral Genders for English

The future of gender in English

Posted by Aneta Naumoska on September 01, 2011

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Gender English month continues with a guest post by Aneta Naumoska, a Lector of Contemporary English Language at the “Blaze Koneski” Faculty of Philology in Skopje, Macedonia. Aneta’s first book, Gender Marking in the English Language, was published in December 2010. Her particular interests lie in the field of Sociolinguistics. She is also an avid Twitterer (@ELTane).

_______________

The strict feminist ideals of revolutionizing the so-called masculine English language have been looked upon by some in a favorable way, while others simply disagree by complaining that such an immense language change will only bring about “sloppy” euphemisms. As Michiko Kakutani has noted (1):

Certainly no decent person can quarrel with the underlying impulse behind political correctness: a vision of a more just, inclusive society in which racism, sexism and prejudice of all sorts have been erased. But the methods and fervor of the self-appointed language police can lead to a rigid orthodoxy – and unintentional self-parody – opening the movement to the scorn of conservative opponents and the mockery of cartoonists and late-night television hosts.

Nonetheless, there have been a multitude of attempts (around 80) by grammarians over the past 200 years to coin new words that will free women from their position of being lexically obscure, yet maintain grammatical competence. Many have advocated gender-free – or epicene – pronouns (such as ne, ter, thon, heer, hiser, en, et, ip), which have one form to indicate either sex, but without any success, which is the reason why they were quickly labeled “the words that failed.” On this topic, Dennis Baron states that “epicene pronouns are not transparent, unambiguous, or easy to use; they are phonetically and visually awkward; and they are the creations of a feminist conspiracy” (2).

Prescriptivists find the gender-specific pronoun he to violate the rules of pronoun agreement (hence the emergence of epicene pronouns), and they have the same objection to the singular they used as a replacement for the generic masculine or the third person singular it. Employing a plural pronoun to refer to both singular definite and indefinite nouns (everyone, somebody, anybody) is a clear example of semantic agreement, but not grammatical agreement. Jespersen and Quirk are both tolerant on this issue, but accept the existence of singular they only for informal constructions.

In the second half of the 20th century, The Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English listed over 40 outrageous examples of unlikely replacements for several everyday terms: e.g.:

amen-aperson, freshman-freshperson, history-herstory, human-huperson, manhole-personhole, manipulating-personipulating, manslaughter-personslaughter, manners-personners, mantle-persontle, nomenclature-nopersonclature, sportsmanship-sportsoneship, etc.

Miller and Swift have given quite an attention-grabbing solution (3):

Searching the roots of Western civilization for a word to call this new species of man and woman, someone might come up with gen, as in genesis and generic. Like the words deer and bison, gen would be both plural and singular. Like progenitor, progeny and generation, it would convey continuity. Gen would express the warmth and generalized sexuality of generous, gentle and genuine; the specific sexuality of genital and genetic. In the new family of gen, girls and boys would grow to genhood, and to speak of genkind would be to include all the people of the earth.

What do you think? Are these solutions for a gender-free English language appealing? Or are they simply over the top and unrealistic?

Notes
1 Goshgarian, Gary. Exploring Language, 7th ed. 1995. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers
2 Baron, Dennis. Grammar and Gender. 1986. New Haven: Yale University Press
3 in Goshgarian, 1995

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/future-of-gender-in-english

English Love

Poverty of 'love' in the English language

August 12, 2011 by Thomas Raphael-Nakos

In the 2002 film Evelyn, Irishman Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife and the mother of his three children abandons the family.

Doyle, a real person on whom the film is based, is further confounded when the Irish courts and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland place the children in church run orphanages.

The film follows Desmond’s courageous legal battle to have his children returned to him and his home. Evelyn, who is Desmond’s daughter, testified at trial and in standing by truth and in exhibiting her deep love for her father, influenced the Irish Supreme Court to rule in Desmond’s favor.

When Desmond initially meets with his lawyer, the subject of Desmond’s love for his children and their love for him comes up. A problem Desmond faces is that in the English language there is only one word for love.

In contrast, Greeks have numerous words to express the varieties of love human beings experience.

Among the words used in Greece are the following:

- Agape (ἀγάπη), which means unconditional love. It can express a general affection or deeper sense of "true love." Agape is often used in the Christian scriptures to express a love that is sacrificial.

- Éros (ἔρως). Éros is passionate love, and it includes sensual desire and longing though it is not limited to a love that is sexual in nature. It can be interpreted as a love for someone that is more intense than the love of friendship. Éros also can imply a very deep appreciation for beauty.

- Philia (φιλία), which means friendship or brotherly love. It is a dispassionate virtuous love and includes loyalty to friends, family and community. It requires and understanding of virtue, equality and familiarity. Phillia denotes a general type of love as between family and friends and a desire or enjoyment of various activities, as well as between lovers.

- Storge (στοργή). It means "affection," such as that between parents and children. It also expresses the tolerance necessary in order to get along with those whom you really don’t like.

In English, we have one word, love. I can love my spouse, my children and my friends. I can love my car or even ice cream or chocolate or macaroni and cheese, and there is but one word to describe it.

In the movie, the lack of various distinctions for the understanding of love has led the Irish Catholic Church and Irish Law to fail to recognize the love of a father for his children is as equally valid as that of a mother for her children. Desmond has lost his children to the orphanage because few in authority can see Desmond, or any father for that matter, can love his children as lovingly as a mother.

The lack of diverse words –- and understandings -– of love in the English language leads to many tragic circumstances in the English-speaking world.

In the United States, we have made some strides toward granting fathers equal status with regards to their children in circumstances of divorce, though, when all things are equal, the children almost always find themselves domiciled with the mother even as the courts grant “joint custody.”

A mother’s love is valued more than a father in our society. This often leads fathers to distance themselves emotionally from their children. Language, or the lack of adequate language, contributes to self-fulfilling prophesies about how we value paternal love.

It is sad our definitions of love are encapsulated in just one word. It is silly that my love of ice cream and my love for my wife can be verbally expressed with only the word “love.” My only recourse is to force an emphasis by saying, “I love ice cream, but I really, really love my wife.”

Beyond the silliness there is also the tragedy. Because we only have one word for all the various varieties of love, it creates a kind of leveling and equalizing of emotions in our minds and souls.

Even though we know there is a difference between a love of ice cream and a love for a loved one our real, everyday appreciation for the things we love are leveled.

So we have football and golfing widows and bridge club and shopping widowers. Even though we use the word “love” for the people we love and the things we do, a more truthful expression would be more fully conveyed in the word “like.”

You may like football, golf, bridge or shopping and you may, at the same time like your spouse, but where is the agape love that is sacrificial? The leveling transforms love into like and the depth of love expressed in agape is lost.

Besides the love of agape that often falls by the wayside, so too do other expressions of our loves.

When we use terms like “falling in love,” or when we become enthralled with some activity or goal we use the word “love.” The more accurate word would most likely be éros if it were available to us.

We have no words to differentiate passionate love from sacrificial love, or the love for family, friends or even our activities. We experience the passion of éros, but when the passion subsides and we have no words to express what it has been transformed into, too often apathy sets in.

We begin to take for granted the loves that give our lives meaning. We begin to “live lives of quiet desperation” as Henry David Thoreau suggested. Passion is gone and we are at a loss with little to replace the passion except for the “like” that seems so little in comparison to what we once knew.

Most of us, most of the time, are able to distinguish what we mean by love when we are fully mindful of our love in any particular circumstance. If we are really in touch with our feelings and purposes, we know when we are in storge love, philia love, erotic love or the love of agape.

The problem is that being mindful takes practice and intention and most of us, most of the time are not living mindfully. When we begin to allow the word “love” to embody all of our various types of love, all the types begin to meld. When this happens, our lives are diminished, and we become a little less human.

We cannot change the English language to accommodate the various nuances of love any more than we can change it to accommodate the various realities. What we can do, though, is to practice becoming mindfully aware of what we are feeling. If we know what we are really experiencing in our various relationships, we will begin to find our lives becoming more whole and full.

Desmond Doyle overcomes a grave injustice that arose out of misunderstandings about the realities of love.

The injustices of love’s misunderstandings, though, continue in our English-speaking world.

Source: http://bettendorf.com/node/1201

Test your vocab.com

Discover your personal lexicon. How many words do you know?

http://testyourvocab.com/

Double Voice Discourse (Baxter) - Women management hedging

Women told to speak their minds to get on in boardrooms

Study shows that language used by female executives in meetings harms their prospects

Women – including those who work in senior positions for some of the country's leading firms – are held back from reaching the very highest levels in business because of the difficulties they find in striking the right tone of language during high pressure meetings.

The claim is made by linguistics expert Dr Judith Baxter, who undertook an 18-month study into the speaking patterns of men and women at meetings in seven major well-known companies, including two in the FTSE-100.

The research found that women were four times more likely than men to be self-deprecating, use humour and speak indirectly or apologetically when broaching difficult subjects with board members in order to avoid conflict. And it doesn't always work.

Baxter said such language, which the study describes as "double voice discourse" (DvD), was used because women were often heavily outnumbered on boards. As a result, senior women engage in a kind of linguistic second guessing, adjusting their language to make the right impact on colleagues. Examples included beginning comments with phrases such as "I am probably speaking out of turn, but…" and "Sorry to cut across you like that but…"

When employed effectively, this kind of language could be a useful tool to manipulate those around them, she claimed, but self-deprecation and an apologetic style were risky because striking a wrong note could lead to appearing defensive and weak.

Baxter, a lecturer in applied linguistics at Aston University, said women were left open to accusations that they were not fully in control of their arguments, which could lead to a complete loss of authority during meetings. "They have to work really hard to hit the right note with their colleagues", she said. "I have seen a woman use all the wrong linguistic strategies, and she lost the room".

Baxter said she had heard one woman director, who had spoken just twice in a meeting, say: "Sorry, sorry, I'm talking too much, I'm talking too much."

According to the annual Female FTSE Board report from Cranfield University School of Management, the proportion of women on the boards of FTSE-100 companies is only 12.5%, a marginal rise on the previous year.

Baxter said: "I found very few differences between men and female leadership language, but there was this one key difference, which I call double-voice discourse. Women use this when they are facing criticism or when handling conflict. While men tend to direct and straight talking and if they are confrontational it is regarded as nothing personal, women avoid being directly confrontational and use a range of strategies to preserve a range of alliances, if not friendships, to achieve their agenda.

"I am not saying that women are more sharing and caring than men. I am not saying they are more altruistic. They are doing it to achieve their own agenda."

But Baxter added that the difficulty in mastering such language not only made it difficult for women to progress, but may put a lot of women off aiming for the top positions.

Baxter said women appeared to use DvD only when greatly outnumbered by men. Karren Brady, West Ham United FC's vice chair and star of BBC show The Apprentice, did not need to use the linguistic tricks, she had noticed.

But Helena Morrissey, 44, recently named one of the most influential woman in the City, who oversees investments worth £47bn as well as her family of nine children, said she recognised Baxter's findings from her own experiences. "It is hard to generalise because there is a spectrum, but actually the women I have worked with over the years certainly don't seek confrontation and would tend to try to avoid it, which would be consistent with this pre-empting of criticism and anxiety, I suppose; hedging, using humour to soften things.

"There are some men who enjoy a good fight, enjoy confrontation, but I don't think I have met any women who want to spark an argument, while I have seen men in the context of mainly male-orientated boardrooms or senior discussion almost seem to push somebody to have that discussion in a quite confrontational way. It is not only that women speak differently, but they are also trying to avoid what will happen next, and this is their style to get there."

Morrissey, the chief executive of money management firm Newton, said she did not want women to start acting like men, but they should be conscious of their language.

"It may be seen as a bit of weakness on the part of women, because you are not playing the game in the same way. Maybe subconsciously there is a feeling that this person isn't as decisive, can't hold her own, is unsure of her arguments," she said.

"Don't say 'you aren't going to like this'; just say it and know that is not making yourself be like the man. You will get your point across and no one is going to think badly [of you]. Well they might, but that is all part of the discussion and the hammer and tongues."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/19/women-language-boardroom-study

Out with gobbledygook, in with Plain English

Nails on a blackboard: legalese and management-speak

Posted by Briony Drimie on May 19, 2011

Business English month continues with a guest post on legal English and management-speak.

_________

My relationship with Business English began at university, where I studied Law. From legal summaries involving sentences that spanned over a hundred lines to words that I remain convinced were made up on the spot, the use of language depended entirely on which side of a case was argued. Legal language was my introduction to the fact that language could be less about clear communication and be more of an art form, clarifying or obfuscating points of law in order to sway an argument.

Despite being considered overly wordy, lawyers are very caught up in individual words, for the definition of a word, or indeed its absence in a sentence can be the pivotal point of a case. By example, one of the first cases students are taught is that of Adler v George. The law stated it was an offence to obstruct HM forces “in the vicinity” of a prohibited place. The defence argued that the defendant was innocent as he was “in” a prohibited place when he obstructed HM forces and not in the vicinity of it. The Judges didn’t agree but it goes to show how a case can hinge on a single word.

Legal language contains many phrases rooted in Latin that define specific legal concepts, such as mens rea or habeas corpus which have evolved as part of the legal process. These phrases don’t mean anything to many of us but they perform a necessary function within Law and are in their own way precisely defined. As such, I can easily tolerate their use in a professional context.

However, upon moving from Law to corporate business, I discovered that there was a vein of Business English I had been protected from: what we commonly know as management-speak, which I have loathed since I first heard it. It reached a head several months ago, when a man I’d never spoken with suggested that he “hit my imagination button”.

I have no issue with the use of metaphor in speech. However, within the business industry, usage seems to have spiralled out of control. Some management-speak phrases grate more than others: a friend of mine loathes “singing from the same hymn sheet” whilst I find “speaking with one voice” irritating. Equally, I find “going forward” problematic. Forward refers to distance and is inappropriate in referring to time. Particularly when phrases such as “in the future”, “from now on”, “soon”, “shortly” “imminently” and “at the earliest opportunity” are all viable alternatives.

A prevailing irritation is the curse of the noun-as-a-verb, leading to “transitioning into a new team” or “incentivating the workforce”. I find these nouns-as-verbs to be the linguistic equivalent of nails on a blackboard. These sentences are clunky and could be expressed in a cleaner way. For example, someone could “move” to a new team or “give” staff an incentive.

In an age when more of our business is conducted internationally and we have language barriers to cross, isn’t it time to promote Plain English?

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/legalese-and-management-speak

Anglo-EU Translation Guide

What the British say	What the British mean	What others understand
I hear what you say	I disagree and do not want to discuss it further	He accepts my point of view
With the greatest respect…	I think you are an idiot	He is listening to me
That's not bad	That's good	That's poor
That is a very brave proposal	You are insane	He thinks I have courage
Quite good	A bit disappointing	Quite good
I would suggest…	Do it or be prepared to justify yourself	Think about the idea, but do what you like
Oh, incidentally/ by the way	The primary purpose of our discussion is…	That is not very important
I was a bit disappointed that	I am annoyed that	It really doesn't matter
Very interesting	That is clearly nonsense	They are impressed
I'll bear it in mind	I've forgotten it already	They will probably do it
I'm sure it's my fault	It's your fault	Why do they think it was their fault?
You must come for dinner	It's not an invitation, I'm just being polite	I will get an invitation soon
I almost agree	I don't agree at all	He's not far from agreement
I only have a few minor comments	Please re-write completely	He has found a few typos
Could we consider some other options	I don't like your idea	They have not yet decided
Correct me if I'm wrong	I'm right, don't contradict me	I may be wrong, please let me know
Up to a point	Not in the slightest	Partially

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/55551980/Anglo-EU-Translation-Guide

Business gobbledygook + winning translation

Critical learnings, going forward

Posted by Stan Carey on May 25, 2011

Macmillan Dictionary Blog very much hopes this will hit your imagination button . Regular guest blogger Stan Carey presents you with a challenge this week. Below you will find a letter written to staff in ‘business-speak’. Your task is to ‘translate’ it into plain (but still Business) English and add your version as a comment below. Stan reckons you can sum it up in a couple of sentences … but that’s no fun. We’ll send the writer of our favourite ‘translation’ a Macmillan English Dictionary of their choice.

___________

Dear employee,

It has come to our attention that productivity drivers are suboptimal, which clearly impacts performance deliverables. We have touched base with HQ and undergone a period of extensive consultation. Actioning this decision-making process requires frontminding streamlined competencies. We anticipate a needs-based harmonisation gap in employee feelings vis-à-vis these necessary outcomes, but we are tasked with maximising the ball-parking of our projected equity outcomes.

Our architectural assets house a raft of measures towards the provision of key learnings for the upsizing of overall skill sets. These operation-centric initiatives push stakeholders’ imagination buttons by crystal balling their high-level ROI expectations. The ensuing agreeance modules accelerate in the core bump space facilities, including food consumption areas, which allows human-sensitive package expansion and back-ended value development. However, executive brainstorming processes suggest that licking the employee envelope has functionality limits.

In short, synergistic knowledgings inputted clear indicators of off-message dialoguing exchanges in semi-salaried discussants’ cooler-based mutual interfacings. In the light of a data-driven assessment, we have scoped the conclusion that these non-centre locality behaviours undermine our company’s alpha potential when factoring in our enhanced string-paradigm alignment to the green growth environment via the meaningful actualisation of our industry-topping integrity footprint.

Therefore our dedication to escalating our core endeavours through transparently iterated evaluative methodologies that represent best practice in emergent collaborative counter-engineering necessitates a decruitment implementation event. This involves non-pensionable productivity management parameters through the creative restructuring of personnel irregularities and necessary throughput of human capital capacity rightsizing.

Parties affected downstream are encouraged to utilise their forward thinking hats and realign their tool belts to the non-ongoing contract situation within a short timeframe totality. We anticipate dynamic new overarching metrics of holistic staff wellbeingness at the end of the day. Surfing where the waves are should galvanise a global blue-sky modality that will roll out and trickle down the Monday mood mountain into the value valley.

The bottom line is that this innovative accounting strategy built on our thought-leaders’ primary policies will cascade the empowerment of partnership change points in the hands-on repurposing of mission critical networks and facilitate across-the-board calibration, transitioning from a space of underperfect monetisation streams to an achievable year-end profit margin, and leveraging consecutive game plans to uptick a full-spectrum benchmarking solution.

We are grateful for your understanding.



Winning 'translation':

Underling,

You have failed yet again, which means the company is failing because of you. The powers that be know of your failings. They have given us the authority to act swiftly and brutally. For the good of the company, you will be granted no mercy.

We can make the company better, stronger, faster. We have the technology. First step: less eating, more working.

Second step: less talking, more working. You bottom feeders will no longer have the opportunity to even talk about forming a revolution, which to us is more annoying than it is hopeless.
Step three: say goodbye to the person sitting next to you. You will now be doing their job as well as your own. You’re welcome.

Now… mush!

Your failings will not cause this company to lose money. Do you understand? This company is in the business of making money and we intend to make lots of money. You are in the business of doing what we tell you to do and we intend to tell you to do a lot.

As always, you have no say in this.

Posted by Joe McVeigh on 25th May, 2011


Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/critical-learnings-going-forward

Language change

Malfunctions, misdemeanours, metaphors

Posted by Michael Rundell on April 29, 2011

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Here’s an intriguing sentence from last Sunday’s Observer newspaper:

“Madonna is constantly on the naughty step for alleged ‘mutton misdemeanours’ while posing with Lourdes.”

It’s common to need a little cultural information in order to decipher things we read in the papers – but this sentence takes some beating. The article is poking fun at celebrity mothers who try to look younger and more attractive than their daughters when the two are out together. There are two difficult expressions here. First, why ‘mutton misdeameanours’? As often happens in journalism, the writer has taken an established idiom and played around with it. The expression mutton dressed as lamb is a rather unkind way of talking about an older woman who dresses in a manner that’s more appropriate for someone younger – and here this is presented as a sort of minor crime, or misdemeanour.

A quick check on Google reveals, as suspected, that ‘mutton misdeameanour’ is a one-off usage – for now. But a witty or clever new phrase can sometimes capture people’s imaginations and be re-used so often that it becomes part of the language. This is what happened with ‘wardrobe malfunction’, which was coined when singer Janet Jackson was performing in the break at the US Super Bowl in 2004: her dress slipped out of place to reveal one of her breasts to hundreds of millions of viewers – setting off a tsunami of wardrobe malfunction references. Could the same thing happen with ‘mutton misdemeanour’? Possibly yes, if the phrase is felt to provide a catchy way of expressing a useful idea.

This is certainly true of our second phrase, ‘on the naughty step’. This started life in the British TV show Supernanny, where a woman called Jo Frost (the eponymous supernanny) explains her strict regime for dealing with ‘difficult’ children. One of her methods is to make the errant youngster stand on a step for ‘one minute per year of her age’, so that she learns the errors of her ways. This is called the Naughty Step. In this case, the phrase rapidly gained currency as an idiomatic expression (Google reports hundreds of thousands of uses), so the figurative use has become far more common than the original meaning. This shift from a literal to a figurative meaning is a common process in language.

Most of the vocabulary we use to talk about computing, for example, was created by recycling – through a process of metaphor – familiar words with literal meanings: window, virus, memory, clipboard, folder, wallpaper, and so on. An interesting member of this class is icon: unlike most computer vocabulary, icon in its original meaning (sense 3 in the dictionary) was never an everyday word in English. But this literal use has spawned two quite separate ‘new’ meanings, and the one used in computing – which is only about 25 years old – is now by far the most common. What we observe here is one of the central mechanisms by which words acquire new meanings: in a high proportion of cases, the journey (another metaphor) from an original to a newer meaning occurs when there is an implied resemblance between the two. The key to this is metaphor.

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/malfunctions-misdemeanors-metaphors

More on Metaphors

Metaphor and message

Posted by Dan Clayton on April 13, 2011

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Our next guest post on the topic of metaphor comes from Dan Clayton, an English teacher and a Research Fellow at UCL’s Survey of English Usage on the Teaching English Grammar in Schools project. Dan’s A level Language blog English Language @ SFX can be found here.

________

James Geary told us on Monday that “Metaphors hide in plain sight, and their influence is largely unconscious”. What’s so pithy about that sentence is the way it reminds us that when we’ve grown accustomed to something it’s often much harder to notice it’s there, acting upon us in some way and colouring our perceptions. In terms of the language we use all the time, we need a form of verbal shorthand – and metaphor often provides that, along with colour and originality – but it’s also something we should occasionally question and draw attention to, because not all metaphors are healthy: some are downright pernicious.

Let’s take education for a start. We’re often told that teachers “deliver” courses or particular “units” of work. But I’m a teacher: if I’d wanted to deliver units I’d have got a job as an IKEA driver. The metaphor of knowledge as a package encodes a particular view of education which suggests that ideas can be neatly boxed up, wrapped in parcel tape and despatched to a student who will then accept the delivery (presumably, waiting in for 6 hours while the driver finds a place to park).

It’s a model of transmission from teacher to student that doesn’t allow for any unpicking or discussion of the actual ideas themselves or questioning of how they’re formulated but is all about sending a pre-packaged idea from A to B. Once the unit has been delivered, it can be ticked off on the list and the next unit keenly awaited.

Should we care? Well yes. The linguist Norman Fairclough in his influential book Language and Power tells us that metaphors “structure the way we think and the way we act, and our systems of knowledge and belief, in a pervasive and fundamental way” and points to the ways in which the metaphors familiar to one domain of life often leak into other domains. So, education and health care become suffused with the metaphors of business and commerce. We are no longer members of a community, but stakeholders in it – with all the gambling connotations associated with stake. Young people are no longer students but clients or customers. Schools and colleges become client-facing organisations with customer charters.

Fairclough argues that these metaphors change the way we behave and can lead to creeping social change, away from the interests of people and towards the interests of capital.

But are we spitting in the wind by challenging this sort of language change? As James Geary reminded us, these metaphors often hide in plain sight. For many of us, they’ve become so normal that we don’t even think about how they shape our thought. But by studying language in a little more detail we can start to see them again, trace their shapes, challenge the assumptions they embody and find new metaphors to describe their alternatives.'

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/metaphor-and-message

Metaphors - Secrets

Metaphor of the day: secret

Posted by Macmillan Dictionary on April 14, 2011

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Metaphors for secret

To keep something secret is like covering it, or putting it in a container, so that other people cannot see it, e.g.:

• She accused him of covering up the truth.
• He tried to mask/disguise/camouflage his true feelings.
• She wanted to bury the memory of that day.
• The project is still under wraps.

To tell a secret is like removing a cover from something, or like opening a container and letting something get out, e.g.:

• He uncovered/revealed/exposed a terrible secret.
• You have always been very open about your feelings.
• Someone leaked the information to the press.
• The news had already got out.

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/metaphor-of-the-day-secret

Metaphors - Conversation (journey)

Metaphor of the day: conversation

Posted by Macmillan Dictionary on April 15, 2011

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Metaphors for conversation

A conversation or discussion is like a journey, with the speakers going from one place to another, e.g.:

• Let’s go back to what you were saying earlier.
• I can’t quite see where you’re heading.
• The conversation took an unexpected turn/direction.
• You’re on the right/wrong track.

For more metaphor examples, see the word conversation in Macmillan Dictionary.
Can you think of more examples of this metaphor in action? If so, please add them below in a comment.

Ideas - Horiculture or Construction

Metaphor of the day: idea

Posted by Macmillan Dictionary on April 17, 2011

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Metaphors for ideas

An idea or theory is like a building or structure. Developing an idea is like building something, and destroying an idea is like destroying a building. For example:

• It was a carefully constructed theory.
• She completely demolished his argument.
• The theory collapsed/fell apart after he produced new data.

An idea is also like a plant. Developing an idea is like helping a plant to grow, e.g.:

• The idea grew in her mind until she could think of nothing else.
• I had sown the seeds of doubt.
• This belief quickly took root.
• It was a fruitful line of research.

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/metaphor-of-the-day-idea