Linkstew

I realized this weekend that my problem is that every problem I talk about becomes "the problem."

Um, sorry. I mean I realized that one of my problems is that...

My speech goes through phases of phrases. For example, lately I've been using the following words way more than is healthy:

• Legitimate/Illegitimate. As in, "Is this a legitimate approach?" or "That was completely illegitimate!"
• Sufficient/Insufficient. As in, "I am sufficiently hungry."
• Ridiculous. As in, "That was completely ridiculous."
• Failure. As in, "I am a."
• 17. As in, "I am 17 tired." When someone asks "Out of what?" my reply of choice has been, "It doesn't matter."

Mainly, I think it'll be interesting for me to document these every few months or so, to chart the progress of my language.

Prossibly very actually means halfway between probably and possibly. I suspect that when most people see me use this term, they just assume it was a brain fart on my part, and proceed to read into it whatever amount of certainty and commitment they like.

But when I say prossibly, I really do mean halfway between probably and possibly. Sometimes probably expresses more certainty than I actually feel, while possibly seems to express less commitment than I'm actually giving.

By the way, by commitment, I mean how much I want to be there, and by certainty, I mean how likely I am to be there.

In my mind, probably, prossibly, and possibly express two axes: Level of commitment and level of certainty. For me, probably is strong certainty and commitment, possibly is weak certainty and commitment, and prossibly is used for either strong commitment and weak certainty. I guess for completeness I should have a fourth term for weak commitment and strong certainty, but in practice I don't want to admit to weak commitment, so I just use either probably or possibly to express that, depending on my level of certainty.

Last summer, a project I took on myself was to overhaul the interface of one of our more confusing systems. The interface was a pet peeve of mine, and I was scratching an itch, as it were. And so I spent a little time, and I made it a lot more useful and consistent, and I was very happy with myself.

And so I called my boss over to show him what I'd done. So I opened the old page to start with, to which my boss replied "Good job! Keep up the good work!"

"But... This is the old page. Let me er, show you what I changed." I said meekly.

I suppose it should be noted that thanks to his having been an RCC the year before me, my boss had never actually used the system in question, and hence did not know what it looked like.

But after that, "Good Job! Keep up the good work!" was a running joke, which he'd use as a useless reply. And now that I have my boss's job (since my boss graduated in May), "Good job! Keep up the good work!" has become a part of my vocabulary.

I use it when I'm complimenting someone on being useless, or having done nothing at all.

By the way, this is the first post in a series of posts in which I'm going to talk about why I say the strange things I say. (Aka, "Benjyisms")

Good job! Keep up the good work!