Circumlocution Office Language (re-post from 12/2018)

I have a small sampling of circumlocutions, collected haphazardly over the last twenty years or so, since I decided a sampler of 21st Century gibberish might be valuable. Today is the day I stuff and mount these husks for display in the Crowndot Circumlocution Museum.

The phrase that started all this is "knowledge amid general understanding." In 1998 the Republic Powdered Metals company, manufacturer of a waterproofing material for the interior rain gutters in metal buildings, included this documentation:

Part 1 General

1.01 Applicator's Qualifications

  1. Applicator shall have knowledge amid general understanding of building design as well as Republic's products specified for the project.

I imagine a committee trying to write a "Gutter Liner Specification" document. I imagine some overly honest member of the committee saying something to himself, only he actually said it out loud: "Well, they ought to know what the fuck they're doing in the first place..." Instead of being kicked out of the meeting, the chairperson agrees, and puts the question of how to say that without actually saying that. 

Another phrase that came into use around the turn of the millennium is "compatibility issues." In fact, the "Y2K" era was the beginning of describing a problem as an issue. If there's a problem, there's a possibility of blame. If there's an issue, gee, well, everybody's got "issues" and nobody's to blame, right? So if The End Of The World As We Know It happened one second after midnight on the First of January, 2000 -- well, there were some compatibility issues. That's all. 

In fact, here is a real quote from a British credit card company spokesman when 20,000 of their card-swipers failed during a "Pre-Y2K" test on 27 December 1999:

It is a software time and date related issue, which will be resolved and we're entirely confident that terminals will revert to full functionality.

On 20 March 2002 I first encountered the term "Open Issue" (meaning unresolved problem" in the readme.txt file distributed with UPS Online WorldShip software. "We still have some open issues..." means "Shit keeps happening and we have no idea what the hell we're going to do or when or if the problems are going to be addressed!"

A story on Slashdot.com posted by Zonk on 6 January 2006 and titled "Microsoft Censors Chinese Bloggers" quotes a Ziff-Davis article saying "Occasionally, as in China, local laws and practices require consideration of unique elements..." Unique Elements. Which means, Microsoft never did hold any values above $ale$ Dollar$.

Product descriptions, formerly in print, and now online, receive ever less editorial scrutiny. A listing from CDI in January 2006 for the Ultra ATX 600-Watt SATA-Ready power supply lists among specifications, "Low Acoustic Noise." As opposed to electomagnetic "noise" I guess? It also boasted "Thermal Overload Cutoff Protection" which sounds like it means that it protects the circuit breaker from cutting off in the event it overheats. 

Circumlocution is nothing new. Read Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (Really -- it's a great book!). Dickens invented the term. One of the great practitioners of the past was "journalist" Will Duranty, who sang thus about the Holodomor while telling his readers that there had indeed been "serious food shortages" in the Ukraine: there was "no actual starvation" and furthermore "no deaths from starvation" -- merely "widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition." Oh. All right then. 

In 2011 I was told by a customer at the Valero refinery in Benicia, "We are rapidly becoming critical path on our coker!" Me no know what that mean. But I assume he means that if the repair schedule isn't shortened to IMMEDIATELY!, bad shit is gonna happen -- and when it hits the fan, there will be plenty to spread around to everybody.

In 2012 the Obama economy got worse and worse. A spokesperson for the president insisted the economy was not in a recession or depression; it was not contracting, in his view, it merely showed numbers "consistent with a weakening growth backdrop."

In August 2016 it came to light that Defense Department intelligence assessments about ISIS had been skewed to downplay the threat and the White House (remember the "Junior Varsity" comment?) incompetence. "The facts on the ground didn't match what the intelligence was saying out of the United States Central Command," said then-Representative Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas), adding that the intel had clearly been "manipulated." In response, one Lieutenant Commander Patrick L. Evans spoke from the Pentagon to say that the intelligence community assessments were "based on multifaceted data related to the security environment." Whatever that means.

I got an email from FedEx on 13 May 2017:

FedEx experienced interference with some of our systems which caused disruptions to the FedEx Express Memphis Hub sort operations. We immediately implemented contingency plans to minimize the impact to our customers. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

The email concluded by reminding us that, "consistent with the provisions of the FedEx Service Guide, the money-back guarantee is not in effect for FedEx Express packages due for delivery on May 13, 2017." Great money-back guarantee, that.

Democratic Socialists

REVOLUTION 

RevOluTion

RevOlTin

R O T .

The Funnel

This picture is a common representation of the gravity field of a black hole. I think the intention is to show that if you try to walk from east to west straight across the x-y "plane" at the top, you're going to fall into one of the biggest ant lion traps in the cosmos. 

If we cut the tip off the sharp end of the hyperboloid, we get a cool funnel. You may have fed coins into one of those mesmerizing funnels where the coin rolls around and around faster and faster, in smaller and smaller orbits, until it plunks into a collection box at the bottom (ideally for charitable purposes).

I have recently decided that life is like the coin's trip down the hyperboloid funnel.

When I was not many years old, a year seemed just shy of infinitely long. Personal potential was so much greater than actualized personality. Birthdays and holidays took a long, long time to arrive.

As we age, the decisions we make and the roads we go down mean an infinite (that is, indefinite) number of choices and directions have been left behind. We become more and more Who We Are, and our orbits down the funnel become smaller and smaller.

Also faster and faster. Seems that way at least. "Age and age's evils" that Hopkins wrote about in his Leaden Echo suddenly surround and overwhelm us. There seems to be less and less time between Christmases. Church on Sunday keeps feeling like didn't we just do this a moment ago?

At my age I'm heading into those dizzying narrows.

Is there any way to focus, hold on, slow down? "Is there any, any, any...?," I ask with Hopkins. There's gratitude, for one. There's the kind of prayer that notices and memorializes moments of beauty. There is the calm that comes from making peace with the fact that some day we must surely die. And until that day, there's leaning on the everlasting arms of Jesus.

From the Mighty Oak...

...The tiny acorns grow. 

It's that time of year. 

To me the scent of autumn has more to do with the tannin smell of oak and other leaves, and not so much to do with industrial grade "pumpkin spice".

Numbering our days

"Teach us to number our days,

    that we may gain a heart of wisdom." 

          -- Psalm 90:12

Sunday 13 September 2026 is, in the Roman Catholic Church, the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Before the calendar was revised, it would have been known as the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. 

The "Ordinary Time" system makes it easier, I suppose, to find the set of readings in the Lectionary book. The old system made it easier for the faithful to locate themselves within the liturgical year. 

Which is more useful? Which is better? 

I guess that depends on who you are. But I have a feeling the "Ordinary Time" system is leaning a bit toward the clericalist end of things. 

Torchlight II

Here we see Yuki_Senpai some weeks ago as a level eighty-something Embermage, dual-wielding wands and taking in the vista at a scenic overlook in the Temple Steppes outside of the Estherian Enclave in the universe of Torchlight II.

One of the endearing things about T2 is that it still runs on my not-so-new laptop. Another endearing thing is I get to kill monsters. The monsters are all very unambiguously Bad Guys. My character is the hero saving this world from the tyrannical ambitions of the Evil Overlord. 

I try not to think too much about the number of hours I have spent playing various characters over the last -- oh about eight years? -- on three computers? Judge not.

Some people play Bunco. Some people go to the Spa. I blow up monsters. It refreshes the soul. You may call it habit forming, but at least it's completely free of sugar or alcohol!

The Dark of the Moon

 New Moon is Saturday, 12 Aug 2026 10:37 AM, PDT.

Why does it matter? The brain is mostly water, you know. So whether you live near saltwater coasts or not, the pull of sun and moon at New Moon time affects us all more than we would like to admit. At least that's what I tell myself. Brain Tides. You have been warned. 

Also, it's going to be extra dark in the dungeons the next couple of nights, so take extra torches or brush up on your Lumos spell. Stay safe, adventurers!