Admission of Guilt

@Hasmita if you’re going to take the things from the hotel…….

@meJess We are not amused 🙂

@Hasmita just put it on the bill

@dancingtongue Thank you.

I must admit I'd not previously known the he origin of the phrase "Human Resources" so it seemed very [i]im-[/i]personal, as if employees were part of the fixtures and fittings.

Even so, if the department is seen as remote and bureaucratic perhaps the problem is nothing to do with its name but how it acts.

For millennia, languages evolved gradually, creating or adopting new words as necessary, styles slowly changing but set rules becoming established. I think that natural development is now threatened or being overtaken by a lot of artificial pressures from various sources for various reasons. Consequently, definitions and constructions become warped, etymology is ignored, clumsy slang is used carelessly, technical terms are used as metaphors without comprehension, elegance is thrown away...

One result may be that communications become hindered rather than helped.

@ArishMell Totally agree. "Jargon" and slang only works as communication amongst those who share the same jargon and slang which, by definition, is a subset of the general population. It can be helpful when it provides shortcuts for those working on the same issue, but can be exclusionary and suspect when used in broader audiences.

The non-gender-specific plural pronouns complicates things further, being an effort to be more inclusionary for the gender-fluid in our society but being so shocking to the grammar we were brought up , thereby suspect of being part of a larger socio-political agenda rather than a solution to the inadequacies of our language. My son pretty much nailed it when a co-worker railed about their employer's dictate that signature blocks on emails/texts/correspondence should indicate their individual preference of personal pronoun for future communication, saying he thought it silly, someone's political agenda, and a waste of time. My son's response was that he personally felt the same, but then it wasn't being done frivolously or to convert us but to make those for whom it was a big issue to feel more comfortable in the workplace.

@dancingtongue I define "jargon" as either misplaced technical terms used as metaphors sometimes without knowing their real meanings (like "epicentre"); or cliches that did start as well-meant metaphors but spread like a bad cold (e.g. "thinking outside the box").

The straying scientific term can even change the meaning of the speech. "I want my country to be at the [i]epi[/i]centre of the Transworld Trading Agreement!" exclaims some politician. That would really mean wanting the country to be outside the TTA, excluded from helping operate it, but buffeted uncontrollably by its actions towards non-members. The correct word for the likely intention, would be "centre".

[The [i]epicentre[/i] of an earthquake is the innocent point of maximum disturbance on the surface from the centre, or [i]focus[/i], of the subterranean rock movement that created the tremors.]

Unfortunately slang can gain such vague meanings and connotations that it can become confusing and exclusive. Sometimes it seems to mean what the user wants it to mean; but may still be meaningless to anyone else. Examples are "woke" and "rabbit holes".

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That word "comfortable" is an interesting one. I heard part of a talk on the radio about social media and freedom of speech on them, and in other areas like speeches. Among the things acting as unwitting censorship is this idea that we must not be, nor make anyone else feel, "uncomfortable".

Clearly no-one wants simply to be insulted or offended gratuitously, slandered or campaigned against (a form of bullying), and most people are polite and kind enough to try to avoid doing that. I can understand your son's explanation of his employee's policy.

There is though a danger like that of the metaphorical cotton-wool avoidance of physical hazards and discomfort rather than facing them correctly and safely. Avoiding all risk of being "uncomfortable", or of accidentally discomfiting others, over some difficult matter; means being frightened to discuss it altogether.

As I recall, my employer's Intranet avoided any such difficulty altogether by using names without titles; though it also reversed the names to surname-first, which could be accidentally amusing if your surname is an adjective like "Tough", "Small" or "Long". Yes, there was at least one of those! Or if your surname is also common as a first name - that tends to your being addressed by that as if a subordinate in the Army, when actually, the first name is appropriate.

(We used to call it your "Christian name".... Doesn't really work nowadays!)

@ninalanyon They HAVE been used as well.