Amelia's Writing Tips for Corporate America*
Amelia says:
Don't use a noun as the predicate, when a perfectly good verb already exists. Verbs describe action. People want to know what's happening. When you use words like "matrix" as a verb, it makes Jodi bang her head against the wall.
"People do not matrix to other organizations! I can only assume that you mean move or transition, but perhaps you mean skip or dance. Or perhaps he will kung-fu over to another organization... I don't know!!"
Have we learned nothing from Schoolhouse Rock?
"When I use my imagination (Verb!)
I think, I plot, I plan, I dream...
Turning in towards creation (Verb!)
I make, I write, I dance, I sing..."
*and other countries as well.
MP3 File
Comments
Comments closed on older entries, whenever I get around to it, to avoid spam.oh, i was sooooo hoping that the MP3 was a sound clip of the monkee.
Posted by: arifa
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10 mai 2005 16h33
actually, the above post was NOT inspired by the monkee. believe it or not. maybe i'll have to see if i can borrow a good microphone from the sound kids... then you'd understand my pain.
but that would be WRONG.
Posted by: Jodi
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10 mai 2005 16h44
Oooh...people in my business use matrix as a verb all the damn time.
Posted by: Chris | 10 mai 2005 17h06
Ok, so fess up. Who is the mp3? Please?
When you read my world, I am sure that your eyes rollback into your head with the grammer shakes.
Posted by: DrinkJack
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10 mai 2005 18h49
that's Moby... singing "Verb! It's What's Happening!"
And your writing does not bother me at all, I'm not a grammar freak when it comes to personal communications. But it drives me nuts that people would take a word like "matrix" which has a meaning around structure and mathematics and start using it like a verb, which has, let's face it, no meaning. Or at least one I cannot figure, without the context of the sentence in which it lives. This happens all the time on the corporate level and it's why I sit in the Quarterly Meetings for an hour and a half, and still walk about and say "what the fuck just happened?"
Example from today: Joe Engineer will matrix to Bob Bigwig, and the Big Engineer Whooseywhat organization, to continue blah blah blah....
It just so happens that I know Joe Engineer and I desperately want to ask him if knows kung-fu now. I want to take emails like that and edit them with big red crayon saying for clugey corporate speak. And then send them back.
Posted by: Jodi
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10 mai 2005 21h30
"Mr. Morton is subject of the sentence, what the predicate says, he does.
The cat scratched. The sun beat down. A neighbor hat chased his kid. The sentence is only complete when we know exactly what the subject did."
The Seeklo version of this School House Rock Classic is at the same speed as the original, so it can be played with the original cartoon.
I once placed a personal add which read, "Mr. Morton seeks Atalanta."
Posted by: gene | 11 mai 2005 14h05
So, when people use nouns, proper or otherwise, as a verb, you bang your head against the wall. So, can we start using the new noun-verb "Jodi" to describe the head beating against a wall when someone uses a noun as a verb?
i.e. He was a moron! I Jodi'd myself through his entire "uberslick" presentation.
Posted by: Thomas | 11 mai 2005 19h12
well, frankly, i think i am a little too lazy to be a verb...
it doesn't bother me when people are creative with language, as long as it makes sense. People use Photoshop as a verb now as in: that picture has been totally photoshopped. but it makes sense. heck, i'm always "tivoing" things now.
however, when you just drop words in because they sound cool, and let's face it, the first guy to use matrix as a verb did just that, it really doesn't make sense. you'd better hope that the context of your sentence let's everyone know what you are talking about. corporate speak may make things sound slick, but i'd settle for understandable any day.
Posted by: Jodi
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11 mai 2005 19h19