Episode Description

Topic: Moving from dumb nouns to awesome verbs.

This week, Dan and Merlin talk about the problem with Capital Letter Nouns; how real and specific verbs will always trounce Excellence, Effectiveness, and Mission Statements-even in the Best-of-Breed Pursuance of Five-Nines Quality Across The Enterprise.

They also look at transitive and intransitive flavors of "feasance," finding your keyboard's Excellence Key, opting-in for The Johnson Treatment, lancing that actionable boil, and (as ever) shooting the obvious fish in the obvious barrel.

Episode Information

Initially Released 7 December 2011

Runtime 1 hour 13 minutes

Episode Page Circuitous Bridge of My Own Design

Recurring Topics and Characters

• Better Questions

Discussion

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Quotes

I learned this in Slaughterhouse 5 and it's turned out to be completely true. It's all about the frames.
-Merlin, on Vonnegut and how glasses stores get you.

No offense, PhDs except you're all jackals.
-Merlin, on asking to be called Doctor if you're not a medical doctor..

Finally you felt alive. You were no longer dead inside.
-Merlin, on what it feels like to get a BA.

You remember like when you were a kid though, you were like "When I turn 10 this will be different," "When I turn 16 everything will change," 18, 21, and on and on you realize it is a hopeless slog and you're gonna die alone.
-Merlin

I think a really interesting question to ask yourself is, like "What are the verbs in my life?"
-Merlin

If your self perceived noun is not squaring against the verbs that you've done lately, I think you're deluded.
-Merlin

There's a transitive kind of feasance that is more rare.
-Merlin