A marriage proposal spoken in office jargon

I think I could be alone, but one of my biggest office-speak pet peeves is using verbs as nouns.<p>Like “ask” (I hear this one all the time), “(value) add”, and “solve” (used in this article - I cringed).<p>I see this a lot on HN too, so again, many others here will obviously not agree. But I’ll intentionally use “request” or “question” over “ask” just in protest.<p>I know the English language has been using some verbs as nouns for millennia, but there are particular ones (like the ones above) that I mostly hear at the office (or outside the office, but spoken by “office folk”), and it’s definitely an annoy.<p>EDIT: Turns out I&#x27;m not alone. Thanks for the validate.

I have a long-time friend who, after years in fintech, now sometimes speaks this way unironically in non-work situations. I mean, I still think he&#x27;s a good guy overall but when he recommends the DND party splits up to maximize ROI on a spell rather than just say &quot;let&#x27;s split up&quot;, it does make me cringe.

When I proposed to my wife, I met her after a couple of years and didn&#x27;t know at the time if she was seeing someone. I nudged the conversation towards that topic and once I found out that she isn&#x27;t, I literally proposed to her in office jargon. I said, &quot;So if the vacancy is still available, can I apply?&quot;. She said yes, and we got married eventually but she still isn&#x27;t too happy about that proposal line.

Another classic in this genre: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;humor&#x2F;daily-shouts&#x2F;a-deep-dive-to-remember-a-love-story-between-business-managers-written-by-a-business-manager" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;humor&#x2F;daily-shouts&#x2F;a-deep-dive-to-...</a>

I&#x27;d like to think I minimize the bleedover of corporate&#x2F;profession-related speech into my daily life, but &quot;orthogonal&quot; and &quot;non-trivial&quot; were just not a standard part of my vocabulary before college. Over a decade later, I find myself saying them a lot.

That&#x27;s proper corporate speak, not so much office jargon. One note: to table in the UK means to put it to vote&#x2F;address, rather than &quot;put it under the rug&quot;

I have queries and doubts on the proposed union. See attached ticket. Please do the needful.

Adjacent News Radio Marriage Proposal: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=y-yGUSRdNG4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=y-yGUSRdNG4</a>

Start with the &#x27;Wedding&#x27; epic in Jira. Add a few spikes to figure out the details and bring those into the current sprint.

Congratulations! I hate it. You did forget to include my person pet peeve—learnings.<p>We already have a word for that—lessons.

If you don’t get the joke, you may be a product manager

Here&#x27;s a classic: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;professionalsuperhero.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;professionalsuperhero.com</a>

Get a slack channel you two

Brilliant! But two phrases I was hoping to see weren&#x27;t there: &quot;reach out&quot; and &quot;embrace.&quot;

This is ripe for a Krazam adaptation.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;1RAMRukKqQg?si=CrRUbA3Ktsm5v7Kk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;1RAMRukKqQg?si=CrRUbA3Ktsm5v7Kk</a>

Take this offline, you two

I recently retired early from a large, F100 valley tech company and there are a few things I miss. But this is definitely something I will never miss!

Jumps off the creativity shark at &quot;will you marry me&quot;.<p>Should be &quot;shall we convince the board of directors of your parent corporation to underwrite a merger deal whereby we unite your corporate assets with mine under a single shelter?<p>As a modern organization, you may continue to operate under the same branding, if you choose, and the value of your stock shall not be diluted.

It&#x27;s funny, but it sounds more like corporate&#x2F;management speak than office jargon.<p>Employees, when no managers are present, seldom talk to each other like this. Sometimes, the way we actually speak to each other, would get us fired if someone from management was eavesdropping.

Sounds like a pair of Corporate SEALs! <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=SUtL6IS7wcY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=SUtL6IS7wcY</a>

I thought they were going to show this:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=y-yGUSRdNG4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=y-yGUSRdNG4</a>

I haven&#x27;t worked in an office in over three years. I sometimes think I miss it but now I no longer don&#x27;t.

Solid but could have double-clicked on Excel and Powerpoint more to complete the roadmap.

Lost opportunity to say &quot;Would you accept a merger?&quot; instead of marriage.

here is a more direct proposal to contrast: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;shorts&#x2F;3GlKd5DOJLE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;shorts&#x2F;3GlKd5DOJLE</a>

See also &quot;Mission Statement&quot; by Weird Al: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4</a>

&gt; But I’m so sorry, I have a three-thirty.<p>I assume that means that she doesn&#x27;t accept the proposal (lit. she has a meeting at 3:30), but don&#x27;t quite follow how that.<p>Can someone reach out and break that down for me.

Solves, asks, learnings.<p>It was a surprise when I discovered just how much negativity and frustration wells up in me when I see verbs turn into nouns when there are already perfectly serviceable nouns available.<p>I am motivated to passive aggressively retaliate by turning even more verbs into unnecessary nouns: seeings, helpings, deliverings, discussings, respondings.

&gt; we can action on our solve<p>This causes me physical pain.

Nothing about any sales, targets, deadlines, etc.? Not even an Excel or ppt reference? I&#x27;m dissapointed!

I imagined Gary as Ira Glass and Cindy as Jen Psaki. I could make it only about halfway before I threw up a little.

It reads like a script from Succession.

Wow, really impactful share! I feel like I got some great take-aways and learnings from this.

We need a similar one for divorce.

I threw up in my mouth a little.

My girlfriend did the same to me. Still haven&#x27;t circled back till this day.

No &quot;level set&quot;?? Booo

Reminds me of a George Saunders story, though it&#x27;s missing the horror element.

GARY: Hey Cindy, remember last week when we were debugging that system design issue?<p>CINDY: Yeah, we got some pretty elegant solutions out of that sprint.<p>GARY: Exactly. That got me thinking: our relationship feels like a system that’s not just functional—it’s optimized.<p>CINDY: Oh? I’d like to hear your use case for that.<p>GARY: Well, I’ve run some simulations, and the output is consistent. You’re my primary key, Cindy. The stability and scalability of our relationship are off the charts.<p>CINDY: That’s a strong endorsement, Gary. I’ve been analyzing our feedback loops, and I feel the same way. You’ve really reduced my latency and maximized my throughput.<p>GARY: So I figured it’s time to push to production. In addition to all the features we’ve developed, I’d like to add one more. (He takes a knee and pulls out a ring.) Cindy, will you marry me?<p>CINDY: I will, Gary! This takes our architecture to the next level.<p>GARY: Marriage is a big commit, but I think we’ve got the bandwidth to make it work.<p>CINDY: Absolutely. But we need to stay agile, especially during our onboarding phase.<p>GARY: Agreed. I’ll make sure to stay in sync during our sprints.<p>CINDY: Good. Because I have one non-negotiable: we need to maintain a clean codebase.<p>GARY: Let’s unpack that.<p>CINDY: My last relationship had too many tech debts. Every time I tried to refactor, there was pushback. It was impossible to iterate.<p>GARY: Sounds like a monolithic mess.<p>CINDY: It was. But with you, it’s different. You’re modular, efficient, and your logic is rock-solid. I just want to make sure we keep things lightweight and maintainable.<p>GARY: I couldn’t agree more. We’ll keep our dependencies up-to-date and document everything thoroughly.<p>CINDY: Perfect. Let’s set up a shared repository to start planning our roadmap.<p>GARY: Done. I’ll draft an RFC tonight so we can align on our deliverables.<p>CINDY: Great. Just flag me if you hit any blockers.<p>GARY: Will do. And Cindy? Thank you for being my forever stack overflow.<p>CINDY: And thank you for being the solution to all my edge cases.

Is &quot;solves&quot; used like that in the wild? Haven&#x27;t heard that one.

I feel sick, good work - even if I couldn&#x27;t get to the end.

In my former communist dictatorship country, we had a term for how the party officials spoke.<p>&quot;Wooden language&quot;.<p>Applies very much to this too.

In the middle ages, all of Europe could hide behind Latin . . .

relevant krazam: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=1RAMRukKqQg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=1RAMRukKqQg</a>

Not believable, didn&#x27;t read &quot;double click&quot;

I think our organisation needs to increase headcount.

Pretty sure discussions like this really take place

See also: A PowerPoint Proposal by Don McMillan: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=WGiePuNFXwY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=WGiePuNFXwY</a>

[ Runs off screaming into the woods ]

They&#x27;re perfect for each other.

That was physically painful to read.<p>Brilliant.

I give them twelve quarters...

Valuable insight!

I am severely disappointed there is no a single &quot;quick question&quot;, though there was a &quot;quick win&quot;, which is bad but not as offensively bad.

valuable insight!

hahahaha. so good. so terrible.

If I had to listen to this sort of shit on a daily basis I think I&#x27;d begin to understand why you all over the water are upset about the prospect of people taking away your big shooty guns.