Work and Words

I work with quite a few Indians. Their ability to construct valid sentences and correctly pronounce words varies widely in this office. Several of them who are on the low end of this ability routinely ask me questions. Not once have I understood any of these questions. My response is always the same, "I have no idea what you just said." With that, they usually look content with my answer, say something in agreement and then leave.

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Based on a conversation I had with Miguel, I'm putting together a list of tech words that should no longer be used. For that matter, they never should have been used. It doesn't necessarily have to be the word itself that needs to be permanently retired, but the particular use of that word. For instance, the word "offline" is perfectly valid. What is not valid is managers in meetings who find themselves in a tangential conversation and declare, "let's continue this offline," meaning that they want to discuss it outside of the meeting. I routinely start convulsing whenever I'm subjected to that.

Other words: cyber-[space, chat, terrorism, anything], webmaster, the information superhighway.

If you can think of any others, let me know.