Dev Blogs
To have a lot on one's plate means to have a lot of tasks and responsibilities. We shouldn't give this task to Bob. He already has a lot on his plate. (Or: He already has a full plate.) At Microsoft, this common English language idiom is treated as a normal part of the language. The metaphorical plate has become a synonym for assigned tasks an...
In economics, the attributive adjective year-over-year means compared to the same time last year. Examples: "Year-over-year sales show a marked improvement." "Expenses continue to fall year over year." (The hyphens disappear when the adjective is used predicatively.) I have only one citation, but it appears that the term has broadened its meaning...
I have only one citation, but the usage is so egregious to me that one citation is all I need. I'm looking for XYZ recommends. My requirements are... Why write recommendations when you can shorten it to recommends and sound buzzwordier at the same time!
If things you teach are teachings, then things you learn must be learnings, right? Good Microspeak citations for this word are hard to find since the word is rarely used in a sentence; it's just a heading in a slide presentation. I found dozens of presentations that had a slide titled Learnings from XYZ, or, for those who want to sound really fancy...
At Microsoft's consulting divisions, customer visits are a part of the job. A shorthand has developed to describe how formally dressed you should be at the meeting with the customer. (I leave it as an exercise to develop the comparable attire for women.) Note: This Microspeak entry was submitted by a colleague from the UK, so it may be pecu...
The more conventional definition of represent is along the lines of "to act as a proxy for". An attorney represents his or her client in court. Your legislator represents you in the assembly. A token on a board represents your position in the game. At Microsoft, the word represent takes on a stranger meaning. Here are some usages inspired by actu...
At training sessions, you don't participate in team-building exercises. No, that's old-fashioned terminology, the sort of thing those old stodgy Web 1.0 dinosaurs would say. The new word is teaming. Note: This Microspeak entry was submitted by a colleague from the UK, so it may be peculiar to the UK dialect of Microspeak. Pre-emptive clev...
As I noted in an earlier entry of Microspeak, the real estate department here has their own weird jargon. Today's phrase is "delivering space": Listed below is the schedule for delivery of space over the next twelve months. Translation: "Listed below is the schedule for when new office space will become ready for use over the next twelve months....
I'm particularly fascinated by Microspeak terms which nobody actually knows the meaning of. You can defend jargon by saying that it's a shorthand way of talking in order to improve communication, but if nobody actually knows what it means, the in order to improve communication part is completely turned on its head. The Microspeak that allegedly all...
The long pole is the part of the project that is on the critical path due to its length. For example, if you have a project that consists of three independent sub-projects, then the sub-project with the longest completion date is the long pole. The etymology of this term is simultaneously obvious yet hard to pin down. Intuitively, the long pole i...