CHAT Re: Hyperambiguity

Teoh wrote:
>ROTFL!!
>
>Reminds me of how web-economy people who don't know what they're talking
>about love generic verbs like "render", "leverage", etc.. Apparently you
>can "render" anything and "leverage" anything. Eg, "leverage B2B
>deliverables", "conceptualize collaborative communities",
(snip other painful expressions)

>For politics, I guess you'll have things like "leverage strategic
>friendships" (gang up with our allies to screw you over), "mobilize
>freedom-protecting initiatives" (war in the name of peace), "incubate
>multi-lateral decisions" (
(ditto)

>Actually, it's scary how similar the two are! :-P

Ah but, this too shall pass.
It's just the old "one from column A, one from column B" approach (it works
in academe too ;-(  ) There's probably a manual published somewhere, updated
regularly.. A while back, "innovative" and "results-oriented" were the
business catchwords.  Does anyone remember "at that point in time".
Safire's "On Language" essays in the Sunday NYTimes have been pointing out a
lot of the most recent ones.

WACAGOT (weeping and cringeing and gnashing of teeth)