work peeves

[rone]

• Rampant misuse of 'ETA': the A in ETA stands for 'arrival'.  Some coworkers use it when they mean 'completion', 'delivery', or 'repair'.  Wikipedia alleges that it may be used "metaphorically" or that it could stand for "achieve[ment]", but this smacks of backformation and must be shunned.
• "Let's take this offline": this means either, "Let's discuss this over private email instead of boring everyone on the CC list with the details," which is stupid because the discussion will still be online, or, "Let's discuss this once the meeting we're sharing with other people is over," which is stupid because, unless the dialogue is occurring between people on a conference call, you're already offline.

Think.  Use the right fucking word, every time.  Only good things can happen.

Comments

[doctroid.livejournal.com]

The OED lists seven meanings for "offline" (as an adjective), of which only two have to do with computing. The earliest usage noted is from 1919, in the sense of "Situated or carried on away from a railway, or the main line of a railway; (also) not done by rail." You might as well complain "Let's take this offline" is stupid because no one's on a train.

Admittedly what you really want is the adverbial definition: "As an offline process; while offline (in various senses); spec. (a) by offline equipment; (b) with a delay between the production of data and its processing; (c) when not connected to a computing network, esp. the Internet," none of which really is applicable to "let's take this offline". But that argument misses the point, which is that the word "offline" originally referred to railroads and now is used in contexts of computing, airlines, manufacturing, sports, and video production; all these now-legitimate uses began with someone using the "wrong" word.