Aren’t you here doing the very same thing to a very old verb?
No, for two reasons. Firstly, I’m not turning a noun into a verb. Secondly, everyone knows that fuck, or variations of it, can be used to replace most other words, or at least inserted into almost any place, in a sentence. It’s a wildcard. As far as I know, this is true almost anywhere in the English speaking world and seems to have existed at least for decades, and probably a lot longer.
Somewhat on a tangent and somewhat back to my original point, a friend of mine (who studied in Russia for a semester) told me how he was having an argument with a taxi driver once, and asked the taxi driver (in Russian), “Are you cunting me?” He then watched with amusement as the taxi driver tried to correctly conjugate the word cunt as a verb instead of declining it as a noun. Oh, the mirth! Now that’s how you turn a noun into a verb with some imagination.
I suppose. But it’s ok to turn a verb into a noun, and not vice versa? And sure it’s been fair game for quite some time to use fuck as pretty much any grammatical term, but to my mind that’s one of the beauties of the English language.
However, I agree with you about the business world and it’s manner of making a noun an action. It’s a bit annoying, but also mildly amusing. Military jargon as well is renowned for making that transition.
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“NomNomTaiwan”]Epic. I was at an academic conference where someone was giving a presentation about a topic in linguistics…she basically studied a bunch of nerds and was reporting that one of their colloquialisms was “epic” as in “This burger is flipping epic”. She described it to mean “cool” or “rad”. I sat there thinking, I’ve used “epic” for years now…and I guess it puts me into some bizarre subculture but I have to say, epic is extremely handy on a day to day basis.
Fail “Fail Whale” or “Struggle Bus”. - both denote epic fail. If youre doing poorly at something, failed to complete something you wished to succeed at, was recently caught in an unsavory or awkward situation…youre a fail whale. “Struggle Bus” can be used describe the same, it can also be used to sum up very quickly just how awful/awkward/embarrassing/failure-esque your story was. I.e., “Oh my goodness, I was running late all day, all my tones were terrible when I was speaking and I ordered the fried chicken eyes instead of mian bao and it was so hot today and class was so tiring…it was just…struggle bus.” Honestly one needn’t even place it cohesively into the sentence, it can just be inserted.[/quote]
I’d call these more Internet slang. Probably originated in online gaming or 4chan…[/quote]
I agree with the “epic” thing, I am sure that spawned from the internet. Struggle bus…not so sure, only because I first heard that from one of my favorite sorority sisters and she and those she hung around with didn’t seem super internet-culture-y. Who knows though! The internet is a series of tubes.
Verbing nouns can be a beautiful thing, when handled with some dexterity.
“Cunt” is one of the very, very few words that I find too vulgar to ever use. I think quite a bit less of anyone who uses it, especially in front of children. My husband and I did in fact stop inviting a friend to dinner because he refused to stop saying it in front of my 10-year old daughter and our 2-year old son, even after being told, clearly and directly, more than once, that we find it very offensive and that if he did it again, we would ask him to leave. He was really surprised when the second time he did it on the second visit after the first time we had that conversation that I rounded up his stuff and my husband opened the door for him… we’re not prudes but it does seem reasonable to comply with what most people would consider a reasonable request when you are a guest in someone’s home!
Anyway, the business Americanism that is driving me crazy lately is “onboarding”. What the fuck. It’s ORIENTATION, or TRAINING. I’m not getting on board anything… except the airplane it took to get here. This is a sore spot for me right now as I just started a new job a month ago, and I’ve heard it rather more often than I can tolerate.
Oh, the other good one I heard right before I left for Taiwan… “Don’t worry, we’ll get you cubicled before you get back”. How about, “we’ll find you a desk”?
I had to chew the inside of my mouth to keep from knee-slapping howls of laughter when a neighbor asked me if I expected to like the “Tiawannick” people – that was how he pronounced it, like an Indian tribe. Holy cow. And we have NEIGHBORS who are Taiwanese that we all know well! I wonder if Bob is stupid enough to called them Tiawannick to their faces… probably. sigh
The latest Microsoft slang is “Do you think it will get sevened?” As in Windows 7… will a project get good funding and support and go on to be a success? Not as groovy as some Msft slang, but that’s the newest one I’ve heard come into common usage around main campus.
I wonder how many of you who detest these so-called “Americanisms” actually have an underlying inferiority complex and this is one avenue for you to attempt to inflate your (and your country’s) self-esteem. 
I’m glad it had some subtitles, but it needs more.
Sometimes when I watch a British/Euro-flick (English language) I have to turn on the subtitles or else I can’t understand half of the words they speak - seriously. :neutral:
“I love to verb words.”–Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbs)
Personally, I prefer to “gerundize.”
Perhaps. But that wisdom cuts both ways. Isn’t carrying a big stick, and treading heavily more or less the very same thing? But then what do I know, for English English is not a second language for me, praise Allah!
Of course, then there is the oh-so-preciously-hip reference to a fucking office complex as a campus…
Seriously though, no, I mean it, whilst my own proclivities in the area of bad language are a much documented and frequently lamented mainstay of Flobbistanian lore, we do have a No Cussing in the House rule that’s strictly enforced.
I can’t believe you even gave the dude a warning, if anyone ever used that word in front of my wife or 11-year-old, especially in my home, just once, they’d be getting the bum’s you-know-what out the door so quick it’d make their fillings sing Carmen.
It’s refreshing to hear an English accent in London. I normally have to travel to the less Imperial Reflux regions, camouflaged as a shorebird in the Fens near The Wash, to eavesdrop on pre-inundation English.
I was listening to the radio once and one of the presenters was talking about games her friend would play in office meetings. Her friend and a colleague would get points for either of the following: 1) recording the most business jargon from a third colleague/boss who loved using it (kind of a verbal form of office Boggle, if you like), 2) each contestant being given a list of ridiculous business jargon by the other contestant and successfully using every word, preferably in one sentence, without giving the game away to others present in the meeting.
Of course, then there is the oh-so-preciously-hip reference to a fucking office complex as a campus…
[/quote]
(Disclosure: I was an employee of Microsoft for 8 years, and I’m still a shareholder).
Do you realize how big the Microsoft footprint is in Bellevue/Redmond/Issaquah/Sammamish, Washington? Probably not. Calling it an “office complex” is a bit ridiculous. They own 10 million square feet of offices in the area, and lease another 5 million, to house 40,000 permanent employees and another 25,000 contractors. (For comparison, Acer, Taiwan’s second-largest employer, has 7500 employees… I couldn’t find a Taiwan-specific number for the China Petroleum Corp, Taiwan’s biggest employer, but their website says they have 14,843 employees globally… I’d be pissed off if I just got hired and wasn’t included in that number). 
Microsoft employees in the area received more than US$7 billion in compensation in 2008 and a study in March 2010 (I must be a really boring person and/or really homesick, because I found the report quite interesting) stated that every employee creates 5.8 jobs for other people in Washington state through direct and indirect spending. Microsoft has been responsible for 28.5% of the economic growth of the entire state of Washington since 1990.
Love 'em or hate 'em, they have an absolutely huge impact on the economy of King County, and I think the massive grouping of facilities in Redmond (about 400 acres) deserves to be called a “campus”. 
http://cybernetnews.com/cybernotes-a-look-at-microsofts-main-redmond-campus/
The first is often fondly called “bullshit bingo”… it’s a fun game, especially if a few people are playing it in the room at the same time. Some groups I know print up five by five grids with various industry-specific words…
Haha. Bullshit bingo! I love it. :bravo:
Of course, then there is the oh-so-preciously-hip reference to a fucking office complex as a campus…
[/quote]
(Disclosure: I was an employee of Microsoft for 8 years, and I’m still a shareholder).
Do you realize how big the Microsoft footprint is in Bellevue/Redmond/Issaquah/Sammamish, Washington? Probably not. Calling it an “office complex” is a bit ridiculous. They own 10 million square feet of offices in the area, and lease another 5 million, to house 40,000 permanent employees and another 25,000 contractors. (For comparison, Acer, Taiwan’s second-largest employer, has 7500 employees… I couldn’t find a Taiwan-specific number for the China Petroleum Corp, Taiwan’s biggest employer, but their website says they have 14,843 employees globally… I’d be pissed off if I just got hired and wasn’t included in that number).
Microsoft employees in the area received more than US$7 billion in compensation in 2008 and a study in March 2010 (I must be a really boring person and/or really homesick, because I found the report quite interesting) stated that every employee creates 5.8 jobs for other people in Washington state through direct and indirect spending. Microsoft has been responsible for 28.5% of the economic growth of the entire state of Washington since 1990.
Love 'em or hate 'em, they have an absolutely huge impact on the economy of King County, and I think the massive grouping of facilities in Redmond (about 400 acres) deserves to be called a “campus”.
http://cybernetnews.com/cybernotes-a-look-at-microsofts-main-redmond-campus/[/quote]
Love 'em or hate 'em has nothing to do with it, I don’t see anything wrong with “complex” here.
I’ve been to Redmond, I know how big it is (as a side note, I don’t know where those figures you’re quoting for Taiwan came from, my employer, theworldslargestitcompany.com, a Taiwan company, has 400,000 people working at our Longhua complex alone), and I ain’t trying to argue with you, I swear 
, it’s just always struck me as particularly naff that the word “campus” is used for a purely commercial enterprise, I don’t care how big it is, it ain’t an educational institution, a use for which the term has been pretty much exclusively reserved (prior, obviously, to the absquatulation therewith by various Silicon Coast types).
And wasn’t Jobbo the Hutt the first to use that term down in Cupertino?
Since neither he nor Bubba G ever earned a proper diploma, I find it amusing that they’ve hijacked the word.
I’ve worked for two high tech manufacturers in the US who both call their set of office buildings a campus. I know that pre-Nextel Sprint in KCMO used that term to describe its KC facilities, too. I don’t think it’s unusual in the non-California US.
If you think about it, it’s fairly subtle way to encourage ethical behavior.
[quote=“flike”]I’ve worked for two high tech manufacturers in the US who both call their set of office buildings a campus. I know that pre-Nextel Sprint in KCMO used that term to describe its KC facilities, too. I don’t think it’s unusual in the non-California US.
If you think about it, it’s fairly subtle way to encourage ethical behavior.[/quote]
Or to propogate the myth that your company is somehow contributing to the greater good rather than just making your shareholders wealthy.
Campus basically means a field. It’s most assuredly an Americanism in the modern sense, meaning a field with structures. Apparently a Princetonian term.