WTF is "Tasking?"

[Cyrano]

This post is for anyone who still gives a damn about the meaning of words.

Before the Bush administration took over, I never heard the word "tasking." All of a sudden, the army was "tasked" to invade Iraq. The CIA was "tasked" to collect information. The NSA was "tasked" to listen in on our phone calls. Airport personnel were "tasked" to strip search grannies. (And no doubt, all the lawyers that Bush is hiring are being "tasked" to save his worthless hide.)

Any time I hear a new word like "tasked" which, in government speak, seems to have replaced "assigned to," "requested to," "told to," or "ordered to," I get very suspicious.

George Orwell's "1984" showed us how language can be distorted, twisted and used as just another tool to control the masses. But I'm damned if I can see the benefit that Bush&Co have derived from inventing the word "tasked."

Does anyone have any idea why they're using it? Or what they might be trying to hide behind its use?

[Deja Q]

1. In that context, it means "annoys", "angers", "inconvenienced", et al.

[Jacobin]

2. beaurocrats love to turn nouns into verbs

I fucking hate that shit.

[unpossibles]

9. I also don't like verbing - it's not very crommulent at all

sorry. This happens too often in Corporate America, so I guess a Corporatocracy bent on jargon and broken language doesn't surprise me in the least.

[John1956PA]

11. In the late 1700s, Benjamin Franklin railed against using the word "progress" as a verb.

The website "Answers.com" reports Franklin's dislike of using the word "progress" as a verb:

Franklin Quote

snip:

"Franklin disliked the verb that was 'formed from the Substantive Progress,' as in 'The committee, having Progressed, resolved to adjourn.' This verb, Franklin declared, was 'most awkward and abominable.'"

However, President Washington liked the usage and it became more popular as time went on.

[Cyrano]

14. Hi, John. Welcome to DU. I've never heard that Franklin quote but

it's interesting that this has been going on for centuries. I suppose that all languages evolve, but my ears always perk up in suspicion when I hear a politician, or a "captain of industry" start inventing words.

My guess is that "new" words are more readily accepted when they come from the arts or science communities.

[LiberalEsto]

3. It's a business term too

I worked briefly for a government contractor two years ago, and they used the term "tasked."

I think business management likes to come up with new lingo so it seems like something is being accomplished. What it really means is that they aren't accomplishing anything, but they're throwing around fancy new words to cover up that fact.

Words like this make me, an English major, cringe.

[Cyrano]

10. Terms like "tasked" start with either the govt. or business communities.

But regardless of whether businesses or govt. start using it, the other picks up on it very quickly.

Examples of this are: "Quite frankly...," "As it were...," and "If you will..."

Many politicians start a sentence with "Quite frankly..." which is supposed to mean "In truth." But the second you hear those two words, you can be pretty sure that whatever follows is an out and out lie.

(On edit: The words "Quite frankly," or, "Frankly," were/are almost always present in anything that was/is said by Richard Nixon and Newt Gingrich. If any word ever merited being tarred, feathered and run out of town, "Frankly" is among them.)

[H2O Man]

20. Management.

It's a management fad. I think it is safe to say that in either business or government, if there was a training where a "expert presenter" wore two neck ties, within a month, it would be the new fad. Time, Newsweek, CNN, and Fox would be having Special Reports about the new tie fad.

[Jade Fox]

4. The singular of "multi-tasking" ? n/t

[jmowreader]

5. Tasking: giving someone a job to do

It's just one of those fancy government words.

[Bucky]

16. Why can't the English language just hold still! I hate new words not from the Colbert Report

I first heard the phrase "tasking" when I was working as paper shuffler at a large community college. the meaning was immediately obvious to me and I found it quite inoffensive when people used it. Now 'irregardless', on the other hand, is just evil.

[SoCalDem]

21. Don't get me started.. For me it's "mis-chee-vee-ous"..and

"Feb-YOO-ary"..and "ung-yon"... and "warsh".. and "stas-tistics"

and there are more :)

[Cyrano]

24. (Off subject.) SoCal, that has to be the best cat shot ever. I love it.

[SoCalDem]

25. Aren't they just the cutest cats ever??

The little one's a spittin' image of my sara when she was a baby

1 day old

4 days old

4 wks old


nursing on Marvin's ear

[MADem]

6. I heard it way too often in the military.

You were tasked to do this, that or the other. The thing you had to do was a tasking.

It is a goofy word, but it isn't new in mil-speak. Maybe Monkey has been listening to too many mil briefings, and is focusing on the word. He does that shit....

[sutz12]

7. Well, one thought comes to mind...

The UCMJ protects personnel that object to unlawful orders. Probably doesn't protect against objecting to unlawful "tasks."

Just a thought.

[4nic8em]

8. When uttered...

from the lips of the neonuts, contextually synonomous with "fisting".

[sammythecat]

12. I feel your pain.

Really, and it pisses me off.

Same thing with "misled", and "misinformed". These aren't newly coined words like "tasking", but they are newly coined euphemisms to avoid the truth, as in "the bastard "LIED". This just infuriates me when I hear Dems talk this way.

I don't like this trend to assign new meanings to old words. I almost all cases they do nothing at all to enhance our language. They do not help to clarify anything, they just muddy things up.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

13. Tasking because of actionable weaponization

:)

[Cyrano]

27. I think I ran into that last Friday night, but I was stoned and

I still don't know what it means.

[warrens]

15. It's like the new-agey "gifting"

Pretentious twaddle.

[Cruzan]

17. It's just the verbing of nouns by the semi-literate. In I.T. a favorite is 'architected' because

for some reason 'designed' isn't good enough or just maybe is not in their vocabulary.

[lectrobyte]

18. Yes. Very popular in Corporate-speak. Solution the Problem, etc.

[SoCalDem]

19. It's the more difficut version of "efforting"

:puke:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. Isn't "task" derived from the latin "taxare"

A verb meaning to give somebody a mission?

Is it not the same word we get "tax" from? As in, the King unfairly taxed the commonwealth?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

23. I hate it when nouns get verbed.

[Cyrano]

26. Well, maybe we can allow some exceptions: e.g. "Go Cheney yourself."

It will be interesting to see if something like that catches on and is still being used 20 years from now.