Wednesday, March 7, 2012

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

One of the 'joys' of working in a government department is absolute pillaging of the English language on a regular basis, by people who have enough education that they should know better.
When a halfwit such as Sarah Palin mangles the English language, that is regrettable.
When someone with a postgrad level arts degree mangles the English language, that is a tragedy.

The main transgression is use of a noun as a verb. I might not have studied English for a while, but I still think it is important to identify whether a word is a naming word or a doing word. Some nouns have transitioned (my personal standard bearer of all that is unholy) into common usage as verbs to the point they can no longer be resisted, but I think the list below is still worthy of scorn:

Message. As a verb.
Cf: “this consultation process presents many opportunities to message stakeholders”.

Client. As a verb.
Cf: “we need to embrace clienting with Alstom [a train manufacturer].”

Alliance
. As a verb.
Cf: “we need to explore alliancing options between the train operator and Network Rail.”

Dialogue. As a verb.
Cf: “we need to dialogue with Network Rail about this.”

Decision. As a verb.
Cf: “we need to decision the platform extensions.”
And in related crimes, decisionable as an adjective.

Sweet Mohammed on a unicorn, this makes my ears bleed. The worst offenders aren’t the finance professionals I interact with, and you might expect us bean counters not to know how words work. No, the worst offenders are consistently policy types, who don’t do anything but words.