Words Are Tools

• Words are tools of communication. Unfortunately, words often have different meanings for different people. Here are some examples.....
  
  
• It is in process - So wrapped up in red tape that the situation is almost hopeless.
  
  
• We will look into it - By the time the wheel makes a full turn we assume you will have forgotten it, too.
  
  
• A program - Any assignment that can't be completed by one telephone call.
  
  
• Expedite - To confound confusion with commotion.
  
  
• Channels - The trail left by interoffice memos.
  
  
• Coordinator - The guy who has a desk between two expediters.
  
  
• Consultant (or Expert) - Any ordinary guy more than 50 miles from home.
  
  
• To activate - To make copies and add more names to the memo.
  
  
• To implement a program - Hire more people and expand the office.
  
  
• Under consideration - Never heard of it.
  
  
• Under active consideration - We're looking in the files for it.
  
  
• In the earliest stage of finalization - Haven't started it yet.
  
  
• A meeting - A mass mulling by master minds.
  
  
• A conference - A place where conversation is substituted by the dreariness of labor and the loneliness of thought.
  
  
• To negotiate - To seek a meeting of the minds without knocking together of heads.
  
  
• Re-orientation - Getting used to work again.
  
  
• Reliable source - The guy you just met.
  
  
• Informed source - The guy who told the guy you just met.
  
  
• Unimpeachable source - The guy who started the rumor originally.
  
  
• A clarification - To fill in the background with so many details that the foreground goes underground.
  
  
• We are making a survey - We need more time to think of an answer.
  
  
• Note and Initial - Let's spread the responsibility for this.
  
  
• Let's get together on this - I'm assuming you are as confused as I am.
  
  
• See me, or Let's discuss - Come down to my office. I'm lonesome.
  
  
• Give us the benefit of your present thinking - We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we've already decided to do.
  
  
• We will advise you in due course - If we figure it out, we'll let you know.
  
  
• To give someone the picture - A long confused and inaccurate statement to a newcomer.
  

[ Author Unknown -- from 'Thomas S. Ellsworth' (tellswor@slonet.org) ]