Rightsizing. A company cuts jobs and calls the result the right size.
Restructuring. Jobs are cut as part of a new design for the company.
Leaving to pursue other opportunities. The standard announcement when a manager is pushed out.
Transitioning out. An employee is on the way out of the company.
Parting ways. Both sides agree to end the relationship, at least in the announcement.
Americans call the graduation ceremony commencement. The word means a beginning.
The ceremony marks the end of school, but its name points to what comes next. Commencement speakers usually talk to the graduates about the future.
In 2010, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on preschool and kindergarten graduations in the Atlanta area. Children as young as four wore caps and gowns. Some schools also held proms and a “senior week.” At one school, parents paid “senior fees” of $110 that covered the caps and gowns, a trip, a diploma and a gift bag.
“These kids are the ‘seniors’ of the school, it’s a milestone for them,” said Cathy Brown of the Crème de la Crème schools. Peter Pizzolongo of the National Association for the Education of Young Children was less sure: “What you do at 4 is not likely to have an affect on a child 14 years later.”
On July 17, 2014, the Microsoft executive Stephen Elop sent a memo to his staff. It began “Hello there.” In the eleventh paragraph it said that the plan “would result in an estimated reduction of 12,500 factory direct and professional employees.”
Kevin Roose of New York magazine wrote that the memo “takes 11 paragraphs to get to the point.” In the Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway called it “a case study in how not to write, how not to think, and how not to lead a business.”
When a large company buys a small tech company, it often shuts down the small company’s product. The announcement often sounds like a celebration, and it thanks the users “for joining us on our incredible journey.”
In 2013 Phil Gyford started a blog that collected these announcements. He called it Our Incredible Journey. One description of the blog sums up the pattern: “A company gets bought, its staff are excited (publicly, anyway) about their new home.”
In June 1939, doctors at the Mayo Clinic found that Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. On July 4, 1939, the Yankees held a ceremony for him at Yankee Stadium, between the games of a doubleheader.
Gehrig spoke to the crowd. “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan ran for a second term with a television ad called “Prouder, Stronger, Better.” Its first words are “It’s morning again in America.”
The ad was written and narrated by Hal Riney. It is commonly known as “Morning in America.”
When a Girl Scout moves up from one level to the next, her troop holds a bridging ceremony. The girls cross a bridge, a real one or a symbolic one, to the new level. The Girl Scouts call it “a beloved Girl Scout tradition that honors girls’ achievements throughout the year.”
In his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy listed the tasks ahead of the country. Then he said: “All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
Every cloud has a silver lining. When one door closes, another opens. Blessing in disguise. Make lemonade.
American English carries an unusually large stock of phrases whose function is to locate the gain inside a loss.
They are offered to other people, out loud, shortly after the bad news — which makes them a persuasive move rather than a private consolation.