Posted on 09/11/2004 2:15:37 AM PDT by Exton1
What about the phrases and speech in the CBS Memo.
Does anyone have a way to determine if the following were in common use back in 1973?
The terms that seem unusual for a military man to use in 1973 memo are:
1. "CYA", This term seems like something an MBA in the 1980’s would use.
2. “running interference” (I’m having trouble running interference and doing my job)
3. “sugar coat it” (Staudt is pushing to sugar coat it.)
4. “feedback.” (I don’t have any feedback from 187th in Alabama)
I was in the military at that time and the words just don’t ring true. That is why I am asking you if it is possible to approximate a date when these phases would be generally used.
The reason I suspect “running interference” is that it comes from football, which was not an item of importance to men fighting a war. Problem is I don’t remember when sport reporters started using the term.
The term “sugar coat it” does not seem like something a military man would say back then. It seems more like a term a MBA would have used in the 1980”s
Finally, the term “feedback” seems too informal and un-professional. I think he would have said “I don’t have a response yet from the 187th in Alabama.” The reason I mention this is that we were taught to use precise words. For example you would never respond to a question with “right” for that could be confused with a direction. The correct response would have been “affirmative.”
The things I noticed is that date. The memo has a date of – 18 August 1973. We used to write 18 AUG 73.
This is more a curiosity and any response would be appreciated.
Some of the military acconyms are wrong. That was pointed out in a FoxNews Brit Hume show. The memos refer to current agency titles. Back then, the titles were different and used a different accronym.
Someone not intimately involved in the history of such a thing would not pick up on this.
Someone like Zach Exley has got to be behind this.
The guy that the memo refers to as, "applying pressure" had been retired for over a year and a half when the memo was supposedly written.
Also, the line breaks (wher each line ends) are identical to those you get if you type the memo in MS Word.
and "F.I.S." isn't supposed to have periods in between each letter. The proper usage would be "FIS".
Answered by the Word Wizard on November 24, 1998
Commonly referred to as "Justified Text", which is possible yet hard to do on a manual typewriter. Time consuming as hell to space everything out evenly enough that the text and line breaks line up.
The fact that the documents exactly match the M.S. Word default settings settles it, the rest is just an fun mental exercise.
That being said, I consider the "applying pressure" argument to be a little weak.
My dad retired from the Army at the rank of Colonel, and still had contact and some influence with those still in the service. It seems plausible a Genral might have a fair amount of clout and influence a year and a half into retirement.
To me, the use of the word "feedback" in the 1972 memo is very suspicious. It seems to me that this word did not come into wide use until the '80's. I don't think even techies routinely used that word describe things like human communications before that.
(steely)
The earliest usage of the term that I can recall (and this is anecdotal evidence) was in the term "biofeedback" which was an item of interest in biological and psychological classes I took in 1974-75.
There is a literary forensics expert named Don Foster who could get to the bottom of this. He was the guy who figured out that Joe Klein wrote "Primary Colors" and that Kaczynski authored the Unabomber Manifesto. By comparing the language and writing style in the memo to those in other things Killian has written, he would be able to tell if he was the author. Also, he could tell us if words like "feedback" were commonly used back then.
I had typed in a long paragraph in my post #8 about how I remember having a conversation with my father about in which he noted that a psychologist friend of his had used the word "inputs" to describe environmental factors that influence human behavior; that conversation was in 1975 (I know this because it was right after a vacation in which we visited my father's friend, and that was the summer that "Jaws" came out). I deleted the paragraph because I thought it was too far afield.
Its interesting sometimes to review the vast number of things about everyday life that have changed since we were young...
(steely)
Feedback is also an electrical term for sound feedback from a microphone (the piercing noise) when it amplifies its own signal. Been around for a long time.
All he terms quoted were around when I was in the USN, even in the 60's.
Also, "sugar-coated" came into use with the advent of pre-sweetened cereals in the 1950's. I think that was a common usage in the 70's, as it is today. (I am old enough to remember when Post's cereal "Super Golden Crisp" was originall called "Sugar Crisp" and had a mascot called "Sugar Bear." LOL!)
Excellent point. I don't remember any of those phrases in common use from that time. Pop culture wasn't the nationwide factor then that it is now, with cable shows.
And did you notice when "Sugar Pops" mysteriously morphed into "Corn Pops?"
(steely)
I think it was the microphone-speaker effect you referenced that brought the term into widespread use.
(steely)
(steely)
The word feedback originated in the 20's as the sound we all are familiar with. In the mid 50's it was used to describe information gathered from experiments. I don't know when it became vogue to use it as term to describe someone responding to something another person said. I never heard that term until the early 80's, and while I have no proof, I am extremely suspect it would have been used back in 1972 the way it was used in the document.
But you know, I don't think the use of the term "feedback" is nearly as problematic as the use of the term CYA. I am certain this phrase wasn't around in 1972. Maybe 1982. It's an absolute killer IMHO.
(steely)
I remember the phrases "feedback" and "in the loop" migrating from electrical engineering into business venacular around the early 1980's.
It was about that time that phrase "go non-linear" came into vogue but it was soon surplanted by the more colorful term "go ballistic".
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