NASA Language

Over the past month, I've tried to listen with untrained ears to the sayings that are so common around here. I'm sure every workplace has their own unique language. Ours is no different. Aside from the mass amount of acronyms that fly around, here are some words that have special meanings:



offline: not in a meeting
"We'll talk this issue offline"

capture: to include
"We should capture that idea in the presentation."

folks: distant coworkers
"The safety folks agreed with the solution."

buy: to approve
"The quality engineers won't buy that step of the procedure."

paper: official document
"Where's the paper to justify that work."

rationale: justification or reason
"What's your rationale for stoping this task?"

interface: to work with
"My job requires me to interface with the Japanese."

redline: suggested change to a document
"Does anyone have any redlines?"

inputs: ideas to be submitted
"Give me your inputs by Friday."

mitigate: to reduce
"We must mitigate that risk."

wordsmith: look over a document for grammer and spelling
"After this, I'll wordsmith the procedure."

counter-part: analogous co-worker to your job of another organization
"I've given the updates to my counter-part."

Proprietary Eponyms

I was thinking the other day of how certain household items are commonly referred to by a brand name, such as Kleenex. Imagine if your company's product becomes "the standard" for every other brand of that item; you're golden! Then through everyday English language, your product gets marketed for free by word of mouth!

Imagine a typical consumer. "Honey, while your out could you pick up some Kleenex?" He goes to the aisle and notices that there's Kleenex amongst other brands. The person first notices Kleenex because it's "the ideal" but since it costs more, he will settle for less. Imagine a consumer always feeling as if they are settling for less by buying another product, simply for the fact that "facial tissue" is called Kleenex!

Which products receive such an honor? Are they the first brand name to come out with a product? Are they the brand that completely obliterates every other competitor? How does this phenomenon happen?

I tried to think of as many as possible:

Kleenex
Band Aid
Xerox
Scotch Tape
Velcro
Post-it
Draino
Coke

These sites list more:
http://rinkworks.com/words/eponyms.shtml
http://www.prairienet.org/~rkrause/brands.html

Language

You know, with all this talk about immigration it's interesting to see American's strong loyality towards English- as if it was our language. When they claim that English is America's only language, are they paying tribute to our heritage of having come from the British or do they think that English is OUR language? Quite frankly, we don't have an official language and shame on us for not doing so.

Now, the National Anthem is being recorded in Spanish to appeal to Hispanics. Lot's of people think this is wrong and goes against for what America stands. People say "If you're going to live in the US, then learn English." as if English WERE the official language. Is English really better than Spanish? Personally, I like Spanish better. If we want people to learn English, then let's make it the official language. Otherwise, why shouldn't they be able to have the national anthem in Spanish?