English with an American Corporate Accent - 001

I was in Los Angeles for a business meeting this past March. The three-day meetings tested my endurance and adjustment to jet lag.

Since I had to ask to my non-native English-speaking colleagues from time to time for the subtle meanings of the word/phrase usages, I jotted down some of them to share with those who might be interested. It works best if you can find a native speaker with exposure to corporate America to elaborate on the finer points that I cannot cover well here.

• Put those projects in your list on the parking lot for now. [Put them on hold to wait and see.]
• That's skunk work to me. [That's labor-intensive work and is not too rewarding.]
• We are going to fiddle with the schedule in real time. [We are going to do the adjustment for the schedule on the fly.]
• Are you ready for prime time? [Are you ready for the real presentation?]
• Now, I see a perfect storm developing in that project. [The project is going to see lots of troubles soon.]
• Other than a few expected speed bumps we'll hit, this project should be easy to execute. [We expect to run into a few obstacles here and there in the normal course of execution; it will slow us down a bit when that happens.]
• If you two don't talk right away, I see a train wreck in the horizon. [A train wreck is a big disaster.]
• They are throwing a curve ball to us. [A curve ball in baseball jargon is a ball with unpredictable direction and speed.]
• Let's reconvene at 10 of. [Let's meet again 10 to 3 o'clock. We assume that now is 2:50 p.m. and at times people use the minus scheme to align with the hour.]
• We'll have to see when this new initiative gains traction. [We have to see when this new initiative gets accepted and gets visibility.]