Ravings of a Textual Deviant

I’d like to tell you that things aren’t always like this at work, but I’d be lying.

Me: Are we using it as a noun, a verb, or an adjective?

Writer: It is describing the intitial meeting for a project.

Me: As in “kickoff meeting”?

Writer: Yes

Me: If it’s a verb, then it’s kick off. If it’s a noun or adjective, it’s kickoff.

Writer: I think it is an adjective, since it determines the type of meeting.

Me: And if it’s a Russian name, the alternate spelling is “kikov”.

Writer: I thought that was a name of vodka.

Me: I thought that was Popov. The hyphenated version is an alternate spelling for the noun/adjective usage, but I think it looks suspiciously British.

Writer: So kick-off and kickoff are both acceptable?

Me: (Resisting temptation to slightly misquote Clint Eastwood) Do you feel English?

Writer: Nah, I had bagels this morning, not english muffins. Maybe I should find a yiddish word?

Me: Start with “oy”

Writer: Oy kay!

Me: It’s the most-used word in the Yiddish language–trust me.

Writer: Implicitly!

Me: My fiendish plan is working

Writer: Thank you! I’ll see if I can finish this document then. It’s a [censored] special.

Me: Do you get fries with that? Or just brain-fried?

Writer: That would be the case.

Me: We who are about to fry salute you.

Writer: I’m sorry, the neuron you have dialed has been disconnected. please check the number and think again.

Me: You are assuming that I thought about it the first time. I am a manager, after all.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 6:45 am and is filed under The Write Stuff, What It's Like To Work in IT. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.