I'm so "Prideful" and "Transparity"

Sigh! here I am once more talking about my colleagues and their funny words.

Heard from an American lady here in the office (in Yorkshire) talking about her husbands achievements, "I'm so prideful of (insert name)". Prideful is not a word I would use when describing myself, even if it were true. Why wouldn't you just say you were proud of "Bob" or whatever his name was?

Then in a note, yes actually in writing by email with spellcheck on by default, from one of our compliance officers we're told we need to have greater "transparity" for our customers when handling their complaints. Despite it being clear from the context that she meant transparency, I wondered if parity can ever correctly have trans in front of it to change its meaning. My conclusion was it cannot.

Am I correct that prideful has negative connotations and transparity isn't a "real" word?

Transparity seems to be a company name and trademark. Maybe your officer wants to hire them?

I've never heard of them, but it wouldn't be hard to beat the nonsense coming from some of my colleagues, so maybe we should hire them. Do they do mortgage servicing?

I've never heard of prideful. Sounds like "healthful", a word I hate. What's wrong with "healthy"?

I'm sure I've seen prideful in Scott. The OED wouldn't let me in this afternoon, for some reason, but my Shorter tells me it's "chiefly Sc. & N.Amer., L15".

A quick dip into Google Books brings up Spalding's The History of the Troubles and Memorable Transactions in Scotland "Our ministers are become prideful, and great railers out of pulpit without respect of persons ; and so rigorous their discipline, that the people might not bear their prideful behaviour, and none durst find fault with thir disorders."

For heaven's sake 'transparity' is simply the right to equal pay and equal treatment demanded by people whose genitals have been surgically altered.

What I want to know is what a 'compliance officer' is. That sounds quietly menacing. I picture a jackbooted person with a company medal in lapel who uses rubber-foam lined handcuffs on an employee who doesn't show for an office meeting, as opposed perhaps to an 'enforcement officer' who uses real handcuffs & less covert torture on a worker who took an extra day off for her brother's funeral.

Prideful is a word, but you are correct, she was using it incorrectly and it does have negative connotations. I can't recall having heard it used here (in the U.S.) except by someone criticizing another person.

>7 krazy4katz:
Not necessarily: maybe she was confessing that the thought of her husband filled her up with sinful pride?

>6 bluepiano:
One of the minor challenges of working in the quality business in the age of the spelling-checker is that you often need to use the words "complaint" and "compliant" in the same document. Sadly, there are very few situations in which you can achieve real entertainment value by substituting one for the other.

>6 bluepiano: transparity

Maybe it's not from parity(n1) at all, but from parity(n2), the medical/veterinary term for the condition of having given birth (e.g. cows of second parity have already given birth twice). Logically, transparity could be an unnecessarily complicated way of saying "motherhood" (and thus cisparity = pregnancy)

Hmm, I wouldn't object to the said Compliance Officer wearing jack-boots but that's a different topic for a different type of post altogether.

I suppose 'Bob's wife' could have been confessing pride, some American's are so puritanical this is actually feasible.

Thorold, your suggestion is sheer genius, if we supplied all our customers with pregnant cows this is sure to fulfil some need we haven't identified just yet!

>10 Jonny-Hoochie-Pants:
Hmmm. Mailing out thousands of pregnant cows would certainly give a whole new meaning to "postal delivery"...

Parity is also a mathematical term. An integer has odd or even parity. Transparity would mean that an odd number became even, or vice versa. This defines transparity as the process of transforming an integer into its opposite parity e.g. adding or subtracting 1.

If the word doesn't already exist in the world of mathematics, it should.

Finally googled it and found that a compliance officer makes sure that rules are followed, as I'd guessed. Now I'm picturing a child in jackboots at the front of a classroom shouting 'Just because Mrs Whipple's left the room doesn't mean you can talk in class!' A 'safety officer' who sees that standards are adhered to, by all means, or a 'paralegal' who ensures that laws/ethical guidelines are not breached, but I imagine a 'compliance officer' telling tales when a worker leaves coffee rings on her desk or doesn't return paper clips borrowed from a co-worker or is caught out telling unseemly jokes about the unseemly boss.

As for post #8 I'm trying to believe that 'quality business' is sarky rather than yet another bit of office usage--?

A "compliance officer" at a US airport made me leave the terminal after I accidentally put part of one foot over a line next to a sign that said "do not cross". Here in the UK we call them "jobsworths" from "It's more than my job's worth to let you ....".

>14 darrow: Or more commonly, "It's more than my bleedin' job's worth..."!

Lol!

>14 darrow: The TSA is obviously a real problem here in the US. They once made me miss a flight, and I had to spend 24 hours in the airport waiting for the next one. It is hard for citizens to do anything about these swine, but we are trying.

These people have incredibly boring, repetitive jobs. I get the impression that they will take advantage of any opportunity that arises that will relieve the tedium.

I work at an airport and you've never seen a more miserable, unhappy bunch of people in your life.

I hope that doesn't include you varielle.

No thankfully, but I feel bad for them.