| Date: | February 12, 2007 / year-entry #51 |
| Tags: | non-computer |
| Orig Link: | https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20070212-10/?p=28043 |
| Comments: | 16 |
| Summary: | There was a morning meeting event at which donuts were provided as an enticement. Someone commented on the food thus: "These donuts failed to meet expectations." Peter Sagal remarked that the phrase "emerging to standard" has entered currency in his family as a euphemism for "substandard". (Opening panel round, final question, time code 1:20.) However,... |
There was a morning meeting event at which donuts were provided as an enticement. Someone commented on the food thus: "These donuts failed to meet expectations." Peter Sagal remarked that the phrase "emerging to standard" has entered currency in his family as a euphemism for "substandard". (Opening panel round, final question, time code 1:20.) However, the proposal to replace "failed" with "deferred success" was ultimately defeated. |
Comments (16)
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Please share the brand.
I’m guessing the PNW doesn’t have Krispy Kreme, those are more southern. Dunkin Donuts are more NE. Are Tim Hortons in the US ? (and are they on the west coast ? I thought they were more east-coast Canadian-ish…)
So yeah, where’d the bad donuts come from ? Those nasty grocery store donuts ? Entenmann’s ?
I’m not sure what that time code 1:20 refers to. Is it supposed to be 10:20?
I hate the term deferred success. Deferred sucess suggests that a sucess is guarenteed to occur at some point and this is by no means certain!
Tim Horton’s is Canada-wide, and has invaded a few of the states surrounding Ontario (ie, New York, Michigan, Ohio, and a few in various other North Eastern states.
List here: http://www.timhortons.com/en/join/franchise_us.html
I’ve also heard a "problem" often be described as a "solution starting point" by a former colleague.
@Nathan
Krispy Kreme has indeed invaded the pacific northwest. And during my time at Microsoft it was common to have them every Friday.
I quickly became sick of them.
I’m laughing imagining the sentence "Deferred success is not an option."
All this goes to prove something we have all known all along:
HR is evil.
James
The BBC ‘ultimately defeated’ link, was indeed ultimately defeated by a page not found error: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/suffolk/4724703.stm
Is Raymond suggesting that when something simply doesn’t work we should call it a ‘page not found’ problem…. …I like it!
When you think about it, cooking is similar to programming. You take functions/foodstuffs, combine them together to get a program/cake.
I am sick of those "deferred success" stories. There were a flurry of letters to the newspaper, all because of one crackpot teacher who couldn’t even get the closest possible group (teacher’s union conference) to agree with her.
Heh. I think I’d get more irritated by phrases like that than by whatever prompted them.
difference: if you add too much salt, the roast doesn’t explode (usually).
This reminds me of the change a nearby university made a few years ago: scoring below the pass mark on an exam would no longer be referred to as a "fail", but as "pass deferred".
(At the other end of the scale, my own alma mater refers to fails as "you’re no longer a student here", which seems a little harsh…)
Sorry for being dense, but what is ironic about performance evaluation euphemisms invading everyday speech?
It’s definitely funny though.
Leif, the irony is in how the figures of speech are used. In other words, when a student’s report card indicates that he is "emerging to standard", it is not ironic. When I indicate that the beef at dinner is "emerging to standard", I am being ironic.
The mere fact that euphemisms are invading everyday speech is not in itself ironic.
Gabe, thanks for the explanation.