2003-09-17 - 6:17 p.m.
Since writing that Braveheart/business-speak bit a few days ago, I've been thinking about the hypersensitive, relentlessly vague and excessively touchy-feely pseudo-English spoken in office environments. The Zig Ziglars of the world have taught us a supposedly humane and inspirational way to speak, but in the process, if we choose to play along, we sound much like socially stunted feral children who learned to speak an approximation of English by careful study of scraps of old paper in the attic and listening at the waterpipe for snatches of conversation. Business-speakers sound like they get the basic idea but have no real intuition for the rhythm of language.Case in point: the constant, er, verbing of nouns. Since when was "transition" a verb? "We have experienced a few productivity interruptions since transitioning to the new version of our software." Transitioning?
I have decided to take this to the outer limits of absurdity each day at work. If I grow annoying enough, either a) people will shun me and I will assume the role of the unclean office pariah, or b) I'll help the office with its transitioning into a new era by way of setting a ridiculous example.
THEM: Hey Craig, whatcha doing?
CRAIG: Oh, just filingcabineting these files.
THEM: Did you get that database updated, by the way?
CRAIG: Sure did -- I was keyboarding the new records all morning...
And so on, ad craigsfiredeum.
Now Playing at the Margins of a Theatre Near You
or,
This, Therefore, Will Not Have Been a Film
Fascinating as I'm sure it will be to the right kind of viewer, Derrida: The Movie will probably not draw the sort of rabid crowds that the recent Star Wars or The Matrix sequels had. But I'm enjoying imagining that it would. I love the thought of chattering droves of teenagers in tweed with pipes in their hands queuing up outside Cineplexes in breathless anticipation. And I love the thought of Ebert and Roeper sternly downing their thumbs, exiling Dick and Kaufman's pharmakos from Hollywood in an act of purported purification. In the repetition of the iterable gesture does the smarmy reviewer render the Californian polis safe for special effects and the self-presence of Brad Pitt.
