Meaning what?

This phrase is attributed to General George S. Patton: 

Say what you mean and mean what you say.

I was chatting with a friend of mine.  OK, “chatting” isn’t what I meant.  He met with me to ask, “What would Gary do?”  So, I should have actually started this piece saying; I was providing professional sales coaching for a friend of mine. 

That happens a lot, true?  I mean – someone says (or writes) one thing but they really mean something else.  In the case with my friend, he recently had a meeting with his sales manager to discuss “Territory Re-Alignment”.  Indeed…  in the sales profession this is a common, annual ritual companies put their salespeople through. 

It goes by many names. Territory Re-Alignment; Territory Equalization; Territory Re-Assignment.  What it actually means is Mr. or Ms. Sales Rep, we are going to shrink your territory. (BTW – raising quota and changing compensation plans often go with “Territory Re-Alignment”.  Thankfully, those extras were not part of my friend’s conversation with his sales manager.) 

There are other business oriented wordsmithing scenarios we are frequently impacted by.  Take price increases.  This century, subscription pricing is all the rage.  I mean – how many emails to you get every day asking you to “sign up” for some product or service that comes with a subscription payment component. 

Here’s one example.  According to Google: 

Today Amazon currently has 200 million Amazon Prime members around the world. If Prime subscribers were a country, it would be the 8th biggest country in the world by population! 

Speaking of our subscriptions and those emails, how did you feel when that notification comes through saying your subscription was now going to include ads?  Of course, for a “Nominal Fee” you could continue your subscription ad free.  Ah yes, “Nominal Fee”.   I use that phrase myself.  What it means is your money gets transferred to the person or entity who used “Nominal Fee”. 

The best phrase I heard around the context of a price increase was used by ADP (the payroll service company) way back in the 1980s.  (I know, Dark Ages!)  ADP was one of the original subscription-priced services.  Similar to all subscription pricing models, it was easy to offer a discount to attract new customers. (Today, that sounds like this, “The NFL Package for FREE!  *First year only”). 

Every year ADP would analyze each customer account; their level of discount; and then calculate a price increase for the upcoming year.  But ADP didn’t call it a “Price Increase”.  Instead, they coined the term “Price Realization”.  What on earth does that mean?  Well it meant the reduction or elimination of the promotional discount and raising the subscription price back to the then-current list price.  And that meant the customer was going to pay more. 

This mis-meaning situation is common in other aspects of our daily life.  Take the medical profession.  This is a piece from comedian Brian Regan and his perspective about what doctors mean with the word  “Pressure” . 

Even our household budgeting can get fouled up with something as seemingly straight forward as math symbols: 

Addendum to Murphy's Law: 

In precise mathematical terms, 1+1 = 2, where "=" is a symbol meaning seldom if ever. 

                                  Unknown Sage 

I guess we have to be careful to clarify what people actually mean these days.  And who knows what to expect when the “machines” (aka “AI” aka “Artificial Intelligence”) take over.  What does “Artificial Intelligence” mean, anyway? 

                                                            GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.