The Ask, Violent Agreement and Other Nonsense

For people such as myself who spend many hours of each day on calls with workmates, we engage in a variety of conversations and try our best to keep it interesting. Sometimes we speak formally if we're called upon to present something to our superiors or a group of people that we're not acquainted with. On other occasions, we speak casually as we may share a sense of comfort with old colleagues. During these many conversations, meetings, presentations and occasional arguments, we do our best to articulate our needs so that we can accomplish our goals and move on to whatever demands our attention next. It may be the case that we use analogies, work jargon, acronyms or even the occasional blue language to get our point across. Over many years, it seems that office culture has given rise to a type of communication that seems to be rooted in poor grammatical form and exists seemingly only because the person speaking desires a new way to describe their thoughts or lacks a suitable means to communicate their needs. While it is well-understood that our language is a dynamic, ever-changing landscape, occasionally we come upon words and phrases which appear to be born from pure and utter nonsense. I would like to examine some of this nonsense, consider its origin and offer some advice to reduce the spread.

Let us examine some common examples of modern-day office nonsense and see if we can gain some understanding of these phrases. The first of these that seems to be gaining popularity is when someone will refer to the act of spending money as a noun. That is, someone might say "What is the spend?" when what they should have said is "How much are we required to spend?". In this example, one takes the verb, spend and for seemingly no reason, changes it to a noun with a definite article (never an indefinite article, because that would be strange). Just to be clear here, the word "spend" is well understood to be a verb and as such, it is an action word; eg., I like to spend time with my cat, I am spending too much time on Reddit, etc. The same structure seems to be also applied to the verb "ask", as in "What is the ask?". In many years of dealing with work jargon and office language have I never found a reason to decide that a verb is now a noun. It would be like asking "What is the solve?" or "Who can the work?".

While transposing verbs for nouns is a bit uncouth, it pales in absurdity when compared to a new phrase I have heard on more than one occasion, "violent agreement" or "violently agreeing". I came across this gem when speaking to a member of the leadership team of a tech company. When I first heard it, I was quietly flabbergasted at the preposterous attempt to express one's self and puzzled by the opposition of the two terms used together. Given that the term violence is often associated with disagreement, unrest and acts of harm, why would one specifically choose to pair it with a word that is nearly the opposite and then attempt to use it as a form of superlative? It is my sincere hope that the person who first uttered the phrase did so out of a nervous reaction to an uncomfortable situation and immediately felt bad about saying it, later daydreaming about the opportunity to go back in time and say something different. I dismissed it as nonsense--until I heard my own colleagues begin to use it. However, that bring us to the final thought: where does this nonsense come from and how does its use carry on?

While people creating strange new phrases and odd ways to express themselves isn't actually a bad thing, there should be a line that exists that rational people choose not to cross. Using the phrases "touching base" or "checking in" are not idioms I would choose to express myself but they are minor transgressions among the many expressions we can choose from (unless you are actually playing baseball or patronizing a hotel). My observation has been that leaders will often "seed" their discussions with specific language that they would like to hear echoed throughout their organization. In certain cases, this can be a very effective tool of shaping team culture; language of inclusiveness, encouragement, growth, and shared values can help guide people toward change for the improvement of themselves and of the organization. Then of course, there are those leaders who seem to want little more than to watch our language burn and will plant dandelion and thistle seeds in the form of absurd phrases that help establish a sense of self-importance. It isn't a surprise that the phrase "the spend" has come to popularity as it's shorter than speaking correctly--we must never forget that a busy person is an important person and who among us does not want to feel important?

So what do we do when we hear someone say something that makes little sense and does not clearly communicate their ideas? The best thing you can do is to simply disregard such utterances and not repeat them. The reality is that your boss or their boss will be the ones who say strange things, so it's not wise to offer them grammar lessons during a team call unless you were hoping to find a new job.

To close, when you hear a strange thing being said by a person of relative importance, resist the temptation to use their language in an attempt to borrow their credibility. When people who do not come from a perceived place of importance use silly language, they do nothing but lower themselves and forfeit their own credibility in the process. Leaders should do their best to craft their words in such a way that lifts their people, and establishes a sense of shared goals, community and inclusion, not force their position of importance upon their staff with absurd and terse phrasing. Clear communication has tremendous value and being plainspoken is a virtue.

What are some of the strange phrases you've heard while you've been at work? Do the share!