The English language, king of them all for breadth and depth, became so because it is ever-changing, with new words entering the language every day.  Here are the latest ones you should know, essential to your understanding.

BLAMESTORMING:
Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER:
A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS:
The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY:
The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

CUBE FARM:
An office filled with cubicles.

CROP DUSTING:
Surreptitiously farting while passing through a cube farm.

PRAIRIE DOGGING:
When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

MOUSE POTATO:
The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

SITCOMs:
Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

STRESS PUPPY:
A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiney.

SWIPEOUT:
An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from excessive use.

XEROX SUBSIDY:
Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace copy machine.

IRRITAINMENT:
Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or not) was a prime example.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE:
The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE:
The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

404:
Someone who's completely clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 - Page Not Found".

GENERICA:
Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.

OH-NO-SECOND:
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a big mistake.

WOOF'S:
Well-Off Older Folks.

[ Back to Humor & Ethics Index ]

Edited and adapted from an anonymous email forwarded
by the intrinsically anaerobic Sonia B.