Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Pushing back
Has anyone noticed this new formulation? No one argues anymore, or disagrees, or begs to differ. The term used to describe these age-old activites is now "to push back". I don't know when the term first appeared; I've been noticing it for a few months at the most. As long as it was one possible formulation among many, so be it. Recently, however, I get the feeling it's becoming the only permissable formulation. How lazy.
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3 comments:
This phrase comes up quite regularly where I work, a largish corporation that develops enterprise software. I've found that corporate cultures these days are incredibly adverse to any sort of direct argument. Hence we don't tell anyone their proposal is moronic, we "push back".
David from Soccer Dad dug up a William Saffire article from 2001 about this term. So apparently I'm behnid the times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/14/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-10-14-01-on-language-fall-fashionese.html
presently I object mostly to the use of "complex" for everything and wonder what happened to complicated, tangled, confusing etc.etc.
maybe it's a trend to use one word for a whole spectrum thereby avoiding the danger that one could be nailed down on having a point of view
rgds,
Silke
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