Oh oh oh, here’s another to add to my “nope” list of trite, rhetorical language which annoys me to no end:
“On balance…” My counter: “Whose fulcrum are we using?”
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Words or phrases that annoy you (even if you can't explain why) . . .
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Oh oh oh, here’s another to add to my “nope” list of trite, rhetorical language which annoys me to no end:
“On balance…” My counter: “Whose fulcrum are we using?”
This is simply an acknowledgement that the most important "battles" are happening on a conceptual playing field. It occurred to me now that for many this fact is still considered an uncommon knowledge.
I mean, that’s what snowboarders and downhill skier pals have told me, following their many visits to nearby mountains (when I still lived near enough to mountains), but the most I’ve ever done is to toboggan my way on a flimsy piece of plastic down a city hill after a good dumping of powder. I’ve also slid down the road of an icy hill after a freezing rain event, but that one was on me for not coming to the hill prepared properly (i.e., with studded winter tires).
The “slope’ is good, whether slippery or rough. Human progress is good. Progress also takes work and it also takes preparation of the knowledge behind the work.
Nah, but “slippery slope” isn’t a phrase to be describing what some, including you, believe to be an “uncommon knowledge”. Calling something, in reflexive, knee-jerk posture, a “slippery slope” — solely because one wants to stand in the way of human progress — is antithetical to making any forward progress for the common benefit of all who comprise humanity.
You know, it’s like another old chestnut I don’t like being used rhetorically, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Not so when those with the seaworthy boats of life, wilfully and deliberately, poked holes in other boats whose pilots could not repair them in time for the next tide to come rolling in. Consequently, those pilots drown. (Also, whomever came up with that chestnut failed to remember — or account for — how all high tides are followed, cyclically and inevitably, by a falling tide. :headdesk
Some might say that our much loved mother nature is dying and the human dust with their gadgets and their economic growth and competition are not helping. They might even use a much more slippery/smooth rhetoric but the main "message" remains the same.
A rising tide lifts all boats. Big and small.
It is like some countries most of which don't even have statesmanship competencies to be a real countries/states(there will always be somebody(outsider/as well as an insider("fifth column") trying to poke a hole) decide that in a particular moment they have a "chance" to "feast" on a bigger country. This is just yet another example that if you are not conceptually powerful and don't have a solid statesmanship competencies you will always end up on a dinner plate on somebody else's table with no regards how many "rising tides" are coming your way.
Anything to do with curtains being drawn.
Are curtains that are pulled across drawn? Or undrawn? And is drawing curtains opening them up? Or closing them? Or entirely dependent on whether that are across, or not? Or time of day?
Are curtains that are pulled across drawn? Or undrawn? And is drawing curtains opening them up? Or closing them? Or entirely dependent on whether that are across, or not? Or time of day?
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Perhaps they are an artist and the curtains are part of a still life drawing? 😁
Curtains being drawn come from the same linguistic world as swords or guns, or weapons being drawn.
You draw curtains to close them; when opening curtains, you draw them back.
There is no consistent message behind “slippery slope” when terms of a rhetorical peak and respective valley aren’t laid out explicitly by the user of that rhetorical device. 😤
Worse, the inferred understanding of what a slope constitutes, when climbing it, is the climb is toward the progress of reaching the summit, whereas the valley is a point of regression.
To hold that thought in mind, when considering how the way “slippery slope” gets frequently employed as a lazy rhetorical device to infer how progress means to risk sliding down a slope, is completely counterintuitive.
If a speaker who leans on “slippery slope” as a rhetroical device cannot or will not be upfront and explicit — much less bothered — in setting out those terms, then they really shouldn’t be using it at all (not even, as so many do, as a meta-dogwhistle — that is, a word or phrase which refers to fixes dogwhistles, even as it isn’t, in itself, a fixed dogwhistle).
Frankly — and this here is my hot take — dogwhistles are the refuge of the cowardly.
Except when boats have had breaches punched into them, which was what I noted above. Moreover, tides always fall, yet this rhetorical device elides observing how some of those “boats” don’t fall when that tide goes back to being low.
What I think you’re getting at — please correct me if I’m wrong! — bluntly put, is “There can be only one Genghis Khan at any given time.”
No wonder we, as a species, are so good at killing mother nature. 🤦♀️
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Ah, yes, very well said.
Or, have been already holed, and are not seaworthy, (for many reasons, some of them of the socio-economic variety).
Re "slippery slope", I have always understood it to mean something suggesting the idea of an uncontrolled, unexpected, unforeseen, and unfortunately, an accelerating descent, one where you have lost any sure footing you may have had at the outset because you have lost control, of movement, direction and velocity.
Of course, in speech (and in writing) it seems to be used primarily in a sense of threatening that this unfortunate outcome is to be expected if a certain course of action (one not recommended or supported by the speaker/writer) is pursued.
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Indeed.
Wow. This is a way I’ve never parsed before. In this light, it carries a completely different meaning. It’s also no better of a rhetorical device for the reason you expand on below.
It tends to be used whenever a speaker is aware they lack substantive, hard, incontrovertible findings to back the reflexive response they’re feeling to the winds of change. Although it can be used to refer pivotal, consequential human technological developments (pick any, really), people tend to lean on that phrase relating to matters outside the scope of technology.
Agreed.
The people who use this expression fear change, fear that it cannot be reversed, and, above all, fear that once started, the pace of change will only accelerate, and can be neither steered, nor directed, nor controlled.
Very unsettling for some.
And yes, you are absolutely correct.
This expression is not used for technological change, but tends to be reserved for changes in the socio-economic and related spheres.
You think I was not being upfront/explicit in my example???
I said human dust!!! The next logical thing to say is genocide. This is what "slippery slope" means. Progress??? Sure, cannibalism is very good for the environment if that what you mean when you say the "slope" is good. You just don't want to be at the bottom of this "slope".
Not even close. A conceptually powerful individual can play a strong game with very weak cards. So while a rising tide presents a certain opportunity for all not everybody really know what they are doing and therefore will not be able to take advantage of this opportunity.
So totally contrary to the topic of this thread I don't find slang, unusual expressions, word abuse annoying. In fact I find it interesting to see how people use language. Some things that are now bizarre or deemed poor use of language will drop from the lexicon, others will eventually end up in the Oxford dictionary. My only standard is that the meaning is clear, which is the case of most of the terms in this post (such as slippery slope) that people object to. I don't want to see language restricted by always having to fit into a tight tux.
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I'd say you're in the minority if absolutely no words/phrases annoy you at all when you hear them. I guess count yourself blessed with that much cringe resistance 😄 Btw, that doesn't mean I don't find learning about how such words/phrases are used uninteresting. That's a totally separate concept. And I'm also not suggesting that these words be banned or restricted, but just be aware that often the words we choose can totally turn off certain audiences from what we have to say (normally the more "out there" informal slang terms), so in that sense it can be pretty important, depending on the context.
The real management is the management that you are unable to see. You are already being very vague by using the word "clear". As demonstrated in this thread not everybody understands how the management process is conducted through the use of a "particular" words. Unfortunately people just get really surprised only "after the fact"(they reach the bottom of the "slope").
Yes you can play 2 pianos(and people) against each other at the same time.
Simple: start a new thread and copy/paste the link here to let others know so they can migrate over there to continue to discuss concerts.
I don't think these two phrases have been mentioned yet, but I want to scream every time I hear them because they sound so dorky:
1. "Winner winner chicken dinner!" to indicate someone got something correct or literally won a contest.
2. "Easy peasy lemon squeezy!" to emphasize how easy a task is (once you know how to do it).
1. "Winner winner chicken dinner!" to indicate someone got something correct or literally won a contest.
2. "Easy peasy lemon squeezy!" to emphasize how easy a task is (once you know how to do it).
I usually tell them I prefer difficult difficult lemon difficult.
“Trick” as an adjective:
“Wow, your MacPro8,1’s trick configuration is really cool.”
Just… don’t do that. “Trick”, as adjective, is like trying to make “fetch” happen. Fetch is never going to happen.
“Wow, your MacPro8,1’s trick configuration is really cool.”
Just… don’t do that. “Trick”, as adjective, is like trying to make “fetch” happen. Fetch is never going to happen.