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> we’ve taken steps to de-cost our real estate portfolio > remote work is the primary experience for our employees, Why do they talk like that? Like inventing
by sfjailbird 3y ago
> we’ve taken steps to de-cost our real estate portfolio
> remote work is the primary experience for our employees,
Why do they talk like that? Like inventing new stupid words and torturing existing ones, instead of just straight forward saying what they want to say?
- saym 3y agoIt's like using "certified pre-owned" instead of "used".
- tough 3y agoSo just double-speak as regular english
- sentientslug 3y agoExcept that one actually makes sense, because “certified” means it was inspected and warrantied by a dealership versus a “used” car which is most often sold as-is.
- 8ytecoder 3y agoRight. Certified preowned is not just a marketing term.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- chii 3y ago"Americans have trouble facing the truth," [George] Carlin said. "So they invent a kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it" (Parental Advisory, 1990). [1] But instead of it being americans in general, it's corporates. [1] https://www.thoughtco.com/soft-language-euphemism-1692111 https://www.thoughtco.com/soft-language-euphemism-1692111
- nathanaldensr 3y agoNarcissism. They like to hear themselves talk.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoPress releases as big companies is like playing operation with connotations, everything is fine tuned to minimize amortized risk
- tikhonj 3y agoI figure it's because they're trying to sound corporate, because that's just how people imagine "official" communications have to sound. Clear, simple writing would be too casual! It's possible to write corporate communications in a straightforward and effective style, but it requires a level of writing skill and a level of confidence that employees might not have, especially when the writing has to go through several levels of internal review by managers and subject to internal politics. The result is writing by committee that intentionally avoids even the semblance of personal voice.
- post_below 3y agoMaybe a rhetorical question but I think there are a few answers. One is that some people think that's what professional sounds like, this sort of dated, verbose corporate "believe us, we're big and competent" messaging strategy. I think it just lands as inauthentic and cold to modern audiences. But it's been a popular strategy for generations, and people tend to market/message the way they've been marketed to. Definitely notable that Dropbox doesn't seem to be thinking about brand strategy when writing these sorts of releases.
- soVeryTired 3y agoLook to your own tortured words. Referred to a system as ‘performant’ recently?
- whateveracct 3y agoUsing nouns as verbs and verbs as nouns a la "de-cost" is classic corporate nonsense. "What's the solve" etc
- 0x6461188A 3y agoBoth and "cost" and "de-cost" are verbs.
- whateveracct 3y agobut the way it's used here is clearly noun-as-verb
- rocketbop 3y agoI think here it’s taking the noun meaning of cost and endeavouring to re-verb it, if you will. Reduce costs, would be the clearer way to put it.
- cdelsolar 3y agoVerbing weirds language
- serf 3y agoI always imagine that it's an intense statistical overview of the release by speech-writers. "Reducing costs and saving money polls negatively, people relate it to dwindling cash reserves and that may affect share price, open up the book and find an as-of-now untested phrase that means the same thing, let's try that! 'de-cost' ? Might as well!"
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago[dead]
- Ylpertnodi 3y agoThe truth (plain English) hurts. Obfuscation works. God only knows on who, though. I just treat press-releases as puzzles, if only to work out the doublespeak.