Fleshing and pipes, or flushing and pikes?

Ths history of language and in particular popular phrases has always intrigued me.  At Microsoft, we're especially adept at verb-ifying nouns and noun-ifying verbs.  For example: "onboarding" means getting people on board with your plan, "I have an ask" means I have a request.  Don't ask me why we do this - I blame the PMs :)

A couple of phrases have really caught my attention lately because they're commonly used in 2 similar but very different ways:

Fleshing out vs. flushing out ideas - I believe the actual correct term is "fleshing out" - as in adding flesh to the bones of an idea.  Or is it flushing out, as in flushing out birds from a bush?

Coming down the "pipe" vs. coming down the "pike" - I don't know here (and haven't bothered to look it up yet) - is something on the horizing trickling down a pipe like a raindrop full of work?  Or is it travelling down Workload Pike on its way to Completionville?

I'm curious to hear what phrases or verb/noun manglings your office has adopted.

Comments

• Anonymous
  April 03, 2006
  Don't get me started on bad office language.  I have a whole list of things I wish people would quit saying...
  
  - "Moving/going forward"
  - "Circle up"
  - "Thoughts?"
  
  Lots of people don't understand some basic rules of grammar.  Two things that really bug me:
  - misuse of pronouns case; for example, they say "George and myself had a meeting."  
  - use of apostrophes to create plurals; e.g., "I bought two car's."