“We need to see the holistic process.”
The same guy who insists on using thematic for theme just tossed out this gem. Since holistic is such a misused word anyhow (it is not a synonym for “whole”), this may be our next entry.
Do you have an encounter with the word holistic that qualifies for Lexicide? Please tell us by posting a comment below.
“Let’s see the thematics you’ve come up with.”
“I’m not sure any of these thematics hit the mark.”
“Next meeting let’s see some more thematics.”
Not content with the pedestrian theme, fifty-something director guy tacks on a few extra letters and voilà — instant erudition. Cowed subordinates follow suit. Film at 11. (See also schema.)
UPDATE | November 21, 2014
EVISCERATE: “disembowel (a person or animal); figurative: deprive (something) of its essential content” — New Oxford American Dictionary
Things just keep getting worse for embattled New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera… The employees—and Democratic county clerks—eviscerate her. (The New Mexico Independent, September 2, 2010)
My friend, a Scottish newspaper chief…refuses to be mesmerised by the masters of the universe and shuns their occasional entreaties to bring his long spoon and sup with them. It leaves him free occasionally to eviscerate them with a clear conscience. (The Guardian, September 12, 2010)
When I see Deseret News executives frothing at the mouth about “innovation” as they eviscerate their own staff, I want to run to the nearest bathroom to throw up. (Salt Lake Tribune, September 16, 2010)
Did I predict this or what? I grant the many figurative uses of eviscerate a pass, overdone as they may be. But see where this carelessness has taken us? What a short and rocky walk it is from eviscerating statutes to eviscerating people.
I suppose eviscerating is such a strong action, no one could mistake its figurative use (on people) for its literal one. And yet, there’s something imprecise about it. Eviscerate means to gut an animal (note the root viscera), which gives rise to its secondary meaning — to gut a document, idea, what have you. If you denigrate, disparage or disrespect a person , are you ripping out their innards? Would it be as valid to say the aforementioned Scotsman exsanguinates, decapitates, or emasculates the objects of his scorn? Each of those butchering terms has a precise meaning, as does eviscerate, and that meaning does not encompass downsizing (as in the Salt Lake Tribune example).
I’m in a good mood today, so I’ll throw this in the imprecise-but-not-wholly-wrong pile along with decimate, annihilate and my personal favorite, liquidate. But if we’re going to be eviscerating New Mexico’s Secretary of State, can we at least check her organ donor card? The budget crisis could benefit from some haruspicy.
— Otto E. Mezzo
References: http://newmexicoindependent.com/62625/sos-is-mary-herreras-ship-sinking
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/12/catholicism-christianity-pope-benedict
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/50253063-82/news-deseret-halstead-journalism.html.csp
During a non-profit board meeting: “Our program is tailorized and customized to the individual to ensure each participant receives what he or she needs.”
Rich from Lawrence, Kansas, submitted this “sighting” a while back, and I found it while cleaning out my comments box (My apologies, Rich!). What struck me about this one was not only the absurdity of adding to an already serviceable verb (and thus converting it into an adjective), but also the redundancy of the second non-verb.
PERCENTILE: “each of the 100 groups into which a population can be divided according to the distribution values of a particular variable…: the tenth percentile for weight.” — New Oxford American Dictionary
Earlier this year, Lexicide addressed the tendency to add unnecessary letters to a word to fluff them up a bit. …And here we go again. I have seen clients, contractors and colleagues drag out percentile when they mean percent, as in: “We aim to command 25 percentile of the market in five years.” If they’re really trying, they’ll tack on the definitive article to make it “We aim to command the 25th percentile…” Both are wrong. In fact, the second one is, in my opinion, worse. The first one you can chalk up to ignorance or carelessness. The second one shows you’ve seen the word in its correct form and have chosen to use it stupidly. Why would you want to control the bottom 25% of the market, whatever that means?
Percentile does not mean “percent.” If it did, it would be spelled p-e-r-c-e-n-t. Percentile also does not mean “percentage,” as in “We aim to increase our percentile of market share.” Hey! Why not just avoid the problem altogether and write “We aim to increase our market share.” There’s a thought. But I don’t need to tell you that. After all, we’re all in the 95th percentile for intelligence here, right?
— Otto E. Mezzo
P.S.: Oh, and you know what else bugs the snot out of me? Percentage points, as in “We aim to increase our share by 20 percentage points.” What are you, Don King? Increase it by 20 percent and the board will be just as happy, and with the money you save on toner, you can buy one of these.
REDUNDANT: “exceeding what is necessary or normal: superfluous” — Merriam-Webster Online
CNN.com | June 18, 2010: So now you’re abandoned and redundant, wondering whether it’s OK to go see the latest Pixar without a youngster in hand. Yes, it’s OK; you owe it to yourself.
Are you redundant if your children are grown? No, even if you’re the nanny. Redundant is perched on the precipice of sliding into lexicide, helped along by the British, for whom redundant is official-speak for no longer needed (read: unemployed). But that is not what redundant means. Something that is redundant is serving the same function as something else. Far from being useless, redundancies in safety precautions, risk management and data centers are very necessary. Redundancies in writing, on the other hand…
My search of CNN.com underscores how vital it is we use our words correctly and not scoff, as so many do, at shifts in meaning. Case in point — the only reason the word wasn’t more abused this past month was the prevalence of BP officials touting the redundancies they had in place. They probably thought redundancies were “useless” too, and shut them all down.
— Otto E. Mezzo
References: http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/17/toy.story.3.review/index.html?iref=allsearch
CNN.com | July 21, 2010: “One man’s duplication is another man’s competitive analysis,” Clapper said of the newspaper’s assertion that there are excessive redundancies within the nation’s intelligence agencies.
CNN.com | July 19, 2010: We work constantly to reduce inefficiencies and redundancies, while preserving a degree of intentional overlap among agencies to strengthen analysis, challenge conventional thinking, and eliminate single points of failure.
CNN.com | June 25, 2010: The film spends so long running around in ever-increasing circles, it seems to forget where it wanted to go with these characters, and the third act forfeits on its promise of reversals, settling instead for repetition and redundancy.
CNN.com | June 20, 2010: At the same time, Gates has led an administration effort to refocus Pentagon spending by cutting what he considers to be redundant or unnecessary projects and programs.
And that’s in just a 30-day period on one major news website. Our appetite for verbiage truly is insatiable. Now, which is worse: repetitious redundancy or using redundancy as a synonym for useless?
— Otto E. Mezzo
References: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/20/senate.clapper.hearing/index.html?iref=allsearch
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/19/report-u-s-intelligence-community-inefficient-unmanageable-2/?iref=allsearch
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/24/knight.day.review/index.html?iref=allsearch
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/20/gates-spending-issue-could-cause-veto-of-dadt-bill/?iref=allsearch&fbid=JXQd5jZq3jE
IMPEDANCE MISMATCH: “In the field of electronics, Impedance matching is the practice of designing the input impedance of an electrical load or the output impedance of its corresponding signal source in order to maximize the power transfer and minimize reflections from the load.” — from Wikipedia’s entry for impedance matching
If you don’t understand this definition (and I don’t), you have no business using the phrase impendance mismatch. And yet, decrying this tragic inconsistency is fast becoming the new delta (Not that delta was all that old).
Not being a techie, I’m a little hazy on how this phrase escaped from the rarified realm of electrical engineering, but it seems to have emigrated quietly into the world of software development, notably in the term object-relational impedance mismatch. Already, this is wrong. Nowhere is impedance in play; the term should simply be object-relational mismatch. But geeks will be geeks. MBAs, not to be outdone by their jargon-spewing colleagues, are latching onto the phrase to sound more knowledgeable, and now it’s spilling over into “the real world,” as in this op-ed on toll roads:
Relative to what is levied, there is an impedance mismatch between what we pay and the services that are rendered.
What’s wrong with mismatch? How about inconsistency or disconnect? Here’s a good one — use active voice and say “What we pay in taxes doesn’t match the services we receive.”
Meh, like anyone cares what I think. The impedance in impedance mismatch adds nothing but ignorance and verbiage to your writing. However, because it adds a sort of fluffy pretentiousness, it will win and succinctness will lose. If that isn’t an impedance to good writing, I don’t know what is.
— Otto E. Mezzo, suggested by Lex
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please please please don’t follow my example. The correct word for something that slows you down is impediment. Impedance refers only to resistance in an electrical circuit. So please — oh, never mind. Just shoot me now.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impedance_matching
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-relational_impedance_mismatch
http://mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2010/06/29/main_line_suburban_life/opinion/doc4c2a4dfbb29e7673502036.txt
CARELESS: “1. Taking insufficient care; negligent: a careless housekeeper; careless proofreading; 2. Marked by or resulting from lack of forethought or thoroughness: a careless mistake; 3. Showing a lack of consideration: a careless remark; 4. Unconcerned or indifferent; heedless: careless of the consequences.” — American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Searching for stock music is agony enough. Getting the right mood, tempo, breaks and length is like lining up stars — an Olympic task if you’re not God. But describing music must be an even more daunting chore. One can’t use keywords such as “businessman,” “beach” and “yoga” like you can to describe stock photography. So writers for stock music libraries must get creative:
A bit wild, careless, spiteful and with a little bit of blues-rock feeling as well.
The supremely refreshing and relaxing sound of the stream is only accompanied by occasional distant birds, singing carelessly and taking absolutely no notice of you.
Careless, feelgood music.
Ooh! Cue vibraslap. Careless is not the same as carefree. Careless means negligent, sloppy — not something you want in music unless it’s your kid’s elementary school orchestra. Do not confuse it with happy-go-lucky or sans souci.
But wait! you say. Look at the fifth and six definitions in AHD4:
“5. Unstudied or effortless: danced with careless grace; 6. Exhibiting a disposition that is free from cares; cheerful: a careless grin; a careless wave of the hand.“
Aha! Lexicide loses again! Well, I give you that definition 6 seems to cross over into carefree territory. But I did a news search and found only correct uses across the board. So if you want to tell your clients you take a careless approach to account management, go ahead and be careless. Just don’t come running to me when you misplace those purchase orders.
— Otto E. Mezzo
Reference withheld to protect my stock music supplier from ridicule.
IN LIEU: “instead” — New Oxford American Dictionary
You can’t get any more succinct than that. I would have never thought in lieu, as “I accepted store credit in lieu of a refund,” would be in question. Then, on May 5, I receive this email:
And in lieu of today’s date, the baby’s name will be Juanita Margarita.
You see, a colleague had just given birth and another colleague thought, it being Cinco de Mayo, the baby should have a Spanish name and — oh, screw it. The point is: WHERE DID HE LEARN THAT IN LIEU OF MEANS IN HONOR OF?
The best explanation I can think of goes back to days in lieu or lieu days — work days that one takes off in lieu of a holiday or in lieu of compensation for overtime. So maybe because in lieu days are in recognition of hard work —no, you know, this is just out of control. Once FYI starts meaning “just in case,” anything goes! Black is white! Right is wrong! The expedient brown fox leveraged an overt trajectory per the dog! Free! I’m free of true meaning! Woo hoo! Ni! Ni!
Otto will be on sabbatical until further notice. Cards and prayers are appreciated. Thanks. — ed.
