New Trend in Verbs

Someone told me today that they were going to "task" something to me to "get it off [her] plate."

So, "task" is the new "give."

And what she really meant was, "I don't want to be responsible for this, so I'm going to make you do it."

When I started my first "real" job (aka in an office where I slowly turned into a drone and lost all creativity), I really abhorred (yes, abhorred, not hated, ABHORRED) the words people used. Like "sharing" instead of "I want to tell you you did something bad and now our customers hate us"; and "reinventing the wheel" instead of "You dummy, don't do that again and waste everyone's time!"; and "challenge" instead of the infamous and often whispered "problem." I mean, come on, let's not "beat around the bush" and just get to the point. Say what you mean, mean what you say. Let's not talk in cliches and officespeak!

But then, after years of listening to the language, I sorta adapted and found myself saying the same terms. Okay, most of the time I'm making a joke of the terms, but I do admit I have said them seriously on occasion. So I was more than pleased to learn that "task" is a verb. I know it wasn't used in the sentence as the verb, but I figure that time is pretty close: "I tasked that yesterday." "You - you task in the corner." "Task to Starbucks and get me a drink!"

So I gave myself the task of tasking this thought in my blog. Task away, I say!