Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[mercia]

had to spend a recent afternoon with relations who like to impress me with their management-speak. Apparently a nephew is very good at 'networking' and has consequently been 'head-hunted'. I think this means he has changed his job and knows a few phone numbers.

[visualnickmos]

What an utterly, inane and pointless remark to make.

Why do they let her do it?

[Vile Consort]

had to spend a recent afternoon with relations who like to impress me with their management-speak. Apparently a nephew is very good at 'networking' and has consequently been 'head-hunted'. I think this means he has changed his job and knows a few phone numbers.

Nah - it means somebody in the pub offered him a job.

[Lento]

"The programme is so unique – it was the first reality show" !!! (Clemency Burton Hill on The Young Musician of the Yearshow)

What an utterly, inane and pointless remark to make.

Not a very highbrow comment, plus the fact that she qualified the word "unique" ("quite unique" similarly irritating IMHO).

[Crowcatcher]

I haven't read all 142 pages but these are what annoy me when I hear them :-
"across" as the only preposition,
"focus",
"target" as a verb ("targeted" as an adjective"),
"close out",
"trial" instead of test or try,
"key" (principal)
"agenda"
"isuue"
"moving forward"
When I was a working lad (for the BBC) I took the p**s out of my managers, who only ever spoke corporate b******t, by writing my own annual report, answering one of the sections with
"Richard targets his focus across the key agenda issues moving forward"
My manager just didn't get the point!!!!

[Nick Armstrong]

"Richard targets his focus across the key agenda issues moving forward"

I imagine you got promoted, with talk like that! They must have loved it !!



(Hope you saw "W1A" recently.....)

[Richard Tarleton]

Dame Barbara Young (ex-NHS, ex-RSPB, ex-EA, ex.....) this morning exhorted the government to "wake up and smell the coffee" (in this case, re diabetes). This is used a lot, I have no idea what it means.

[ahinton]

Dame Barbara Young (ex-NHS, ex-RSPB, ex-EA, ex.....) this morning exhorted the government to "wake up and smell the coffee" (in this case, re diabetes). This is used a lot, I have no idea what it means.

That espresso - I mean expression - has long made me think that, as one cannot wake up and smell the coffee unless someone already awake has made it, whatever its meaning might be is thereby undermined...

[french frank]

Dame Barbara Young (ex-NHS, ex-RSPB, ex-EA, ex.....) this morning exhorted the government to "wake up and smell the coffee" (in this case, re diabetes). This is used a lot, I have no idea what it means.

I've never heard it, but the Cambridge dictionary online says: "used to tell someone that they are wrong about a particular situation and must realize what is really happening."

Oh, dear, just as I've discovered a useful new phrase I find it's already an irritating cliché.

[Radio64]

Dame Barbara Young (ex-NHS, ex-RSPB, ex-EA, ex.....) this morning exhorted the government to "wake up and smell the coffee" (in this case, re diabetes). This is used a lot, I have no idea what it means.

Has to be better than the awful "get real" ! ..

interesting analysis of its use and origins here, also vis à vis "stop and smell the roses".

[Richard Tarleton]

"stop and smell the roses".

A Cleo Laine number - she sang it in her Spring Collection in the mid '70s.

[gurnemanz]

This man got real.

[Serial_Apologist]

Adaption seems now to have become the accepted substitute word for adaptation, but I still hate it.

[Nick Armstrong]

This problem requires a granular approach...

(Sorry - wrong thread - should be on the 'teeth on edge' thread....)

One of those 'management speak' phrases that one hears several times a day now...

[ahinton]

One of those 'management speak' phrases that one hears several times a day now...

It might help to sugar the pill, though...