A Case of ‘MSU’
I had an e-mail from our good friends out in the Midwest today (hey there Marlene, Sandra, Carol) with an entry for our ‘Newordology’ list. I suspect this word might prove to be one of those ‘industry invented’ terms so I’ll hold off sharing it or putting it into our list, but rest assured, if it turns out that it’s not an industry term, we’ll add it to the list.
The more interesting part of the mail was that the sender (she wishes to remain anonymous and I want to honor Sandra’s request) pointed out that this word might be a case of ‘MSU’ or ‘Made Up Stuff*. This is a new abbreviation for me and I like it a lot. For me, it ranks right up there with ‘SGP**. I asked Sandra (Oops. Did it again. Sorry. Mums the word from here on girl!) about this abbreviation and she said she picked it up at this year’s APMP conference.*** Unfortunately, they don’t recall which session presented this term. If you know to whom the credit for this delightful and very useful abbreviation should go, please let us know.
*The mail actually used a bit stronger term, but I’ll go with the gentler, kinder ‘stuff’.
** Stupid Generic Picture – discovered in ‘Why business People Speak Like Idiots - A Bullfighter’s Guide’ by Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, and Jon Warshawsky. A fun read and should be part of your proposal library.
***I’ve always said you pick up great hints, tips, etc. at the conference. After all, it’s not just about seeing Jon and I waving magic wands, doing our version of American Idol or Extreme Makeover, etc.).
This article was written by BJ on 12 July, 2006 and filed under Word play & writing. If you found it useful, you can with others. To receive automatic updates, subscribe to The Proposal Guys via 
RSS or 
Email.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
I’m betting SGP is from Carl Dickson. He’s the originator of “Generic Specific” which perfectly describes the drivel we read in proposals that usually comes from a database and seemed like such a good idea at the time of writing, but ain’t.
In the spirit of “Steal This Book” I’m borrowing your concepts in a post on my blog today:
http://www.1ricci.com/ideas/2006/07/12/proposal-terms-for-insiders-only/