The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Words I Want

The Rules of Bureaucracy

Rule #O: "The Rules of Bureaucracy are mutable, non-canonical, non-ordinal, and contradictory, except in the cases where they are not."
Rule #1: "Document everything you do; if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen."
Rule #2 [The Sixty Minutes Rule]: "Never do anything that would cause Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Steve Croft, Leslie Stahl, or even Andy Rooney to persue you down a hallway with a camera crew."
Rule #3: "Nothing Simple is Ever Easy"
Rule #4: "It's about the money; follow the money."
Rule #5: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Rule #6: "Politics is the enemy of good government."
Rule #7: "The biggest detriment to public service is the public."
Rule #8: "The second biggest detriment to public service is the service."
Rule #9: "There's a reason; there's ALWAYS a reason."
Rule #10: "The Law is a harsh mistress: The rigorous and exacting application of which can benefit of society when used correctly to advance good policy and block bad, and be the bane of society when used incorrectly to advance bad policy and block good."
Rule #11: "Public service often involves waking up in the morning, opening up the newspaper, and discovering that someone, somewhere out there thinks that you're a dickhead."
Rule #12: "No one really knows what you do."
Rule #13 [Luke's Rule]: "No one ever acts like the bastard they really are."
Rule #14: "Bureaucracy endures."
Rule #15: "The longer you work in bureaucracy, the more Catch-22 resembles non-fiction."
Rule #16: "Politicians are not smarter than you."
Rule #18: "Money is not created equal."
Rule #19: "Mediocrity is normalcy."
Rule #17: "Within any bureaucratic structure, resources (e.g. people, money, knowledge, etc.) are not distributed uniformly."
Rule #20: "Don't assume a fiduciary liability without a committed resource allocation."
Rule #21: "If you do your job and obey the law, they can't reasonably fire you."
Rule #22: "The Budget will always be wrong."
Rule #23: "Always sign in blue."
Rule #24: "A Bureaucrat must be able to explain and justify his/her actions to laymen without resorting to the phrase 'because the Rules say so.'"
Rule #25: "Never voluntarily relinquish control of an original document."
Rule #26: "Sometimes you just have to say 'Screw the rules'"
Rule #27: "Change sucks."
Rule #28: "Sometimes the answer is 'No.'"
Rule #29: "It is very easy to make difficult decisions when no one has a clue what's going on."
Rule #30: "If you hang around long enough, eventually you will become an expert in something."
Rule #31: "Data, technology, and automatic processes can never completely supplant human interaction."
Rule #32: "Cover thine own ass."
Rule #33: "It's not real until it has its own acronym."
Rule #34:There is nothing more dangerous than an elected, resourceful idiot.
Rule #35: It will always take longer than expected.
Rule #36: Coming Soon...

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Words I Want

The English language is glorious because it is so laissez-faire. We'll gladly pick up words from other languages and use them with impunity. Unlike languages like, say, French, which have boards of control to keep their language "pure," English is a damned mutt of a language.

This probably explains why we have like 30,000 words that mean "smell". It also explains why we let Warren G. Harding get away with "normalcy" when "normality" was a perfectly acceptable and alliterative alternative.

Anyway, I have a few words I'd like to see included in the O.E.D.:

"Whelm" - Of course you can be overwhelmed (affected deeply in mind or emotion), and I've heard people using "underwhelmed" (affected shallowly in mind or emotion), but I want to be affected in mind or emotion in just the right amount. I want to go into the movie and say, "Meh, I was whelmed". Kinda explains the general reaction to this blog.

"Couth" - Between the belching, hacking, and farting, my coworkers are rightly called uncouth... but are the rest of us just "couth"? I think so.

"Craptacular" - This one is a Simpson's reference, but I saw Rob Owens in the PG use it once, so it's on its way to becoming a real boy. It is awesome.

Gahzinnus - The entrance... 'cause it "Gets us in"... not to be confused with the Gahzahtus, which would be the exit. I use these on a fairly regular basis, and either people are humoring me or they know what I'm talking about.

Just a few for now... more later, but if you all would start using these words now in regular conversation, that would be great.

3 comments:

Sue London said...: Words glorious words. Two quotes from Mark Twain:

"The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug."

and

"A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt."

And back to the topic at hand, we have mused over whelm and couth ourselves. I mean, they put in SCRUNCHY for goodness sake!; 10:40 PM
Anonymous said...: Er, according to at least three of the dictionaries used by Dictionary.com, "couth" IS a word...

(Admittedly as a back-formation from "uncouth" about 110 years old, but still.); 9:12 AM
O said...: No need to bring facts into this scintilla.; 6:55 PM

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Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Words I Want

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