Words 101 Blog

We all have bad days, the days when everything seems to be hunky dory when, suddenly, it becomes a really crap day. Unfortunately, today is one of them.

What’s more, I know exactly why’s it a crap day. I saw it coming, trouble had been lurking and, insidiously, its dark cloud hovered and then landed. Before I knew it, it had become Crap Wednesday.

 It’s a work day, too, so it’s not like I can responsibly go to the pub, go home, or do anything fun without feeling guilty.

So, I thought I’d take it out on a word – a nasty word. I trolled the web and found a lady extolling the virtues of “filth”. She just loved the feeling it gave her, just saying it, wrapping her tongue around it.  Which, for some reason, made me think of “scum’. Surely, a natural competitor to “filth” in the nasty stakes.

I did some exploring and found that a certain Valerie Solanos wrote “The Scum Manifesto”, in 1968, with “scum” standing for Society For Cutting Up Men”. She didn’t like them so much, she went out and shot Andy Warhol, for something he didn’t do.

Now, that’s what I call nasty. Valerie might even be called “scum”, especially if you’re having a Crap Wednesday.

Posted by Ian Minter

Image by Heart of Oak via Flickr

According to ‘wisefaq.com’, this is a new word for 2009. Apparently, it’s what you call ‘a meeting of a group of people, sitting together to discuss why a deadline was missed, or why a project failed and who was responsible’.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I find the word and its apparent meaning, totally pathetic. Of course, the ‘blame game’ is hardly new. This negative, political nonsense occupies an inordinate amount of time in organizations everywhere and the larger they are, the more ‘blamestorming’ meetings they seem have. It’s very sad that we now have a word for something so counter -productive.

From my own experience, some people live to ‘win’ these kind of meetings. It’s one of their few real skills. They don’t achieve anything noteworthy, never stick their necks out, rarely have a real understanding of the big picture. They just hang around, making the right political noises and kid themselves their worthy of a job. I’ve met dozens of them and I’m sure you have, too.

Needless to say, just the discovery of this word’s existence was enough to raise my hackles. In seconds, it took me back to meetings I could happily have missed and people I wished I’d never met.

Then, I remembered that I now am a partner in a small company that, in 9 years of its existence, has yet to have its first ‘blamestorming meeting’. If we get even close, I’ll end it before very quickly – I’ll just say, “blame me, it’s my fault, now let’s move on…”   

Posted by Ian Minter

Image by Howard.Gees on Flickr

I’ve heard the term ‘filibuster’ used in reference to US politics (a term right up there with ‘pork barreling’) and but don’t recall it used in Australia. Now, it’s everywhere, and it’s all to do with the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Personally, the idea of wasting precious time in Parliament abhorrent. Professionally, I think we need more use of words that conjure up elaborate images (especially pork barreling).

Image from webwhispers.org