Let's go ahead and stop using the phrase "crunching numbers." It doesn't put any type of helpful visual imagery in my head - and it's annoying – especially when what you really mean is “add.”
I sat through a very long meeting today and all I could do was think about the plethora of items on my desk that I could have been working on. Because I was so distracted, I couldn't focus on the content of the meeting, so I sat there instead, making a list of every annoying thing that was said.
Besides “crunching numbers,” (allow me to refer to my very useful notes I was taking), there was “monetize” and “ruminate.”
When we are talking about making a budget, there is no point in trying to make it more elegant-sounding than it is.Creating a budget is tedious, mundane work. “Monetize” makes it sound like an intricate Ponzi scheme when the truth is, it is a column of money “IN” and a column of money “OUT.” That. is. it.
And finally “ruminate.” I LOVE the site, ruminations.com, but the word “ruminate” has limited use. Please don’t use “ruminate” to mean, simply, “think.” Here we go again with the $25 word in place of a $5 word… um… no.
1 comment:
I confess: I kind of like words like ruminate. And the budget thing, for me, was like working a puzzle - trying to make it all come out right. OK, so there was a lot pressure to make it come out right, but the problem solving/puzzle aspect of it was pretty interesting. The biggest challenge was trying to find ways to cut other expenses so I could raise the teachers' salaries. That's always a losing battle. I'd love to hear sometime how much input public school administrators have in the process.
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