Weasel Words

Marketing Weasel Words #8: Take it offline

More business jargon:

let’s take it offline (v.)

Translation: let’s stop discussing that irrelevant issue of yours, leaving you the responsibility for scheduling any follow-up.

A minor idiocy about the expression is that when anybody says this, they are already offline Also, the person who says it is trying to imply that the matter at hand is important, when they really don’t care.  Finally, the statement implies that the person saying it is too busy or important to actually set a time to consider the issue him or herself — again, because he or she really doesn’t care.

For example:

What they say: While that budget issue is important, we’ll need to take it offline.

What they mean: I don’t give a damn right now and I don’t want to talk about it anymore, though I might accept your meeting request about the issue someday, if you remember to send one, which I hope you won’t.

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