At my own workplaces, the New Age–speak mingled recklessly with aviation metaphors ( holding pattern, the concept of discussing something at the 30,000-foot level), verbs and adjectives shoved into nounhood ( ask, win, fail, refresh, regroup, creative, sync, touchbase ), nouns shoved into verbhood ( whiteboard, bucket ), and a heap of nonwords that

Inevitably, the black market became awash with gin, and English duly obliged with dozens of euphemisms for tiptoeing around it, including diddle, sweetstuff, tiger’s milk, tittery, royal bob, and needle and pin (mother’s ruin and strip-me-naked, on the other hand, told it exactly like it was).

What goes on here is not part of the real world.” “How so?” “Mmmmmmmmmh. The language is different.” Some of it was, and a phrase book, such as the Penguin Dictionary of Computers, could be useful. ECO—each letter pronounced—meant “engineering change order.” Hence this remark: “A friend of mine told his girlfriend they had to ECO their relationship