Thursday, October 20, 2005

Violent Surge of Activity

I have what my mother calls a "salty tongue" (the meaning of this phrase varies from culture to culture). According to my mother, this means that I have the power to shape future events by tempting fate. The office is active again and it's difficult to decide what I should be working on now when there's so many things on my plate.

I think I'm just gonna have a slow breakfast instead.

To give you a better idea of where I work, I've started compiling a list of phrases commonly used in my office. If you are from S____ , you are likely to recognise these phrases. So this is really for the benefit of non-S____.

  1. to revert : to reply, typically in an e-mail or phonecall. The reason why this phrase has come to replace "to reply", which has for centuries satisfactorily fulfilled its role, is as yet unknown.
  2. to tap on (usu. followed by "existing ___") : to not bother using one's brain and ride on somebody else's coattails instead. The person who "taps on" often suffers an inherent lack of creativity, is morbidly risk-averse, and frequently married with children
  3. moving forward : Originally used to indicate a change in the direction of conversation towards the future, this phrase has now turned into a conversational pause in which the speaker thinks about what to say next, much like the French "euh".

to be continued...

3 comments:

sternstadt said...

this is hilarious! i especially love the last one.

earrci. said...

schnarf: I might if you learnt to spell "introducing" properly.

earrci. said...

schnarf: Yes, and yes.