Saturday 5 December 2009

Annoying new verb for office-based communication

drop an emailI'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed a rather disturbing new trend in everyday office-speak. It seems that a new verb has descended into common parlance over the last few weeks to describe the sending of emails and faxes and making phone calls - 'to drop'.

I realise that the phrase to 'drop a line' has been around for decades to describe the act of writing a letter but the fact that it seems to have been now rolled out to cover all other forms of communication strikes me as a touch grating.  I have to endure the increasingly stale expressions, "Oh, I'll just drop you an email", I'll drop them a text now", "I'll just drop you a voicemail later on" countless times each day.  And of course, being the habitual contrarian that I am, I make a point of never using the phrase. 

I’ve heard it muttered recently on the train, too, but I’m curious to know whether it’s more of southern thing or if it’s spread across the UK like a killer virus.

… I hope the ‘sphere doesn’t mind me dropping everyone a blog post, just to highlight this annoyance.

Sigh.

3 comments:

  1. I know, I know! I do 'go off on one' occasionally, don't I?!? :p

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  2. Something that annoys me at work is the use of a non-existent verb. Everyone keeps saying '"receipted" on the system...blah blah'. But 'receipt' is not a verb! It's not in the dictionary!!! Is it too hard to just say 'Enter on the system' instead?! Gawd, some people...

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