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Trendy Words I Do Not Like

Started by Cheerful, September 09, 2020, 02:57:02 PM

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dismalist

That's not even wrong!
--Wolfgang Pauli

dismalist

best practices

Where in hell did this term come from? An MBA factory?

What, would we do worst practices?

Me, I like adequate practices.
That's not even wrong!
--Wolfgang Pauli

wareagle

Quote from: dismalist on April 29, 2021, 02:29:18 PM
best practices

Where in hell did this term come from? An MBA factory?

What, would we do worst practices?

Me, I like adequate practices.

I'm fond of mediocre practices.  Okay practices.  Reasonably good practices.  Not bad practices.

I agree, I hate this term.  Who decides what is "best"?
[A]n effective administrative philosophy would be to remember that faculty members are goats.  Occasionally, this will mean helping them off of the outhouse roof or watching them eat the drapes.   -mended drum

FishProf

In my experience, "Best Practices" just means I want to do it this way, so get it line.

When I ask for details about the sources, I am just being difficult.
I'd rather have questions I can't answer, than answers I can't question.

dismalist

Quote from: FishProf on April 29, 2021, 05:01:56 PM
In my experience, "Best Practices" just means I want to do it this way, so get it line.

When I ask for details about the sources, I am just being difficult.

Yup.
That's not even wrong!
--Wolfgang Pauli

lightning

My new annoying trendy word that I have caught myself using, because everyone is using it, is "efficacy."


BourbonRose

Quote from: lightning on April 29, 2021, 09:11:39 PM
My new annoying trendy word that I have caught myself using, because everyone is using it, is "efficacy."



At least it starts with "eff." That could come in handy.

FishProf

Quote from: lightning on April 29, 2021, 09:11:39 PM
My new annoying trendy word that I have caught myself using, because everyone is using it, is "efficacy."

Go all out.  Start referring to "Persistently efficacious" practices.  See how long it takes someone to balk at that.
I'd rather have questions I can't answer, than answers I can't question.

downer

I will admit to asking myself "what hogwash is this?" on seeing the phrase historian of the present.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."—Sinclair Lewis

FishProf

Quote from: downer on April 30, 2021, 05:40:08 AM
I will admit to asking myself "what hogwash is this?" on seeing the phrase historian of the present.

When grading student papers, I have a stamp that says WDTM? (What Does That Mean?).  I may have to start  busting it out with colleagues and administrators.
I'd rather have questions I can't answer, than answers I can't question.

apl68

Quote from: FishProf on April 29, 2021, 05:01:56 PM
In my experience, "Best Practices" just means I want to do it this way, so get it line.

When I ask for details about the sources, I am just being difficult.

I've found in my administrative work that it is helpful to get advice from colleagues and then invoke "best practices" to higher-ups and staff in following it.
If in this life only we had hope of Christ, we would be the most pathetic of them all.  But now is Christ raised from the dead, the first of those who slept.  First Christ, then afterward those who belong to Christ when he comes.

mahagonny

Here's a way to limit the growth of the number of trendy words I don't like: cut down on the number of administrators who have to find ways to justify their job. and are good enough at it.

mahagonny

positionality (not in Merriam Webster's online yet)

mahagonny

#238
Quote from: dismalist on February 12, 2021, 02:57:31 PM
Quote from: wareagle on February 12, 2021, 02:46:31 PM
Did anyone mention "adulting" yet?

Mercy, hadn't heard or read that one yet.

Because "adulting" means "acting like an adult", "whiting" must be next.

Sometimes the reverse happens. Instead of a noun being turned into a verb, the use of a noun/verb as a verb goes out of fashion, while the noun remains. So the 1940 song 'I'll Never Smile again' had the line 'I'll never thrill again.' Seems hopelessly archaic now. Still in the dictionary, but seldom used.

Harlow2

Quote from: mahagonny on May 06, 2021, 07:52:37 AM
positionality (not in Merriam Webster's online yet)

I found myself typing it into a paper I was writing last week  (and quickly brushed it away).  In what I am sometimes reading it has overtaken hegemonic.  (I do like Hegemony, which has a lovely sound.)