Unemployment lingo

[Victor]

Just the general "workforce reduction" has turned up the verb "reduced"
in rather broad use. Other options are "restructuring", "streamlining",
which are more difficult to use with a single employee. I've seen a
British column on the subject at least four years ago, but it would be
hard to track now.

    VS-)

Mark Peters wrote:
> I'm doing a column on the many words and phrases for firing people: let
> go, downsize, rightsize, shitcan, sack, discard, terminate, pink slip, show
> the door, etc.
>
> There are two things I'd like to sip (siphon?) from the collective pool of
> wisdom:
>
> 1) What other words fit in this category? I have some recent ones like getting
> fit and synergy-related headcount reductions, but there must be
> more.
>
> 2) Any info on the history of shitcan? The OED doesn't have it, and HDAS
> doesn't go that far...
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mark
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org