The new way to office :inorganic (& off topic)

[Greg Cento <greg -at- FOCUS-SYSTEMS -dot- ON -dot- CA>]

I'll take a go at this,

Kent Newton is correct when he says

>In these cases, grow is a transitive verb.  While I think the sentence is
>awkward, it is correct.

I believe the problem has to do with using a verb with organic/naturalistic
connotations to talk about a decidedly inorganic/non-naturalistic process.
Most who have responded to this thread have referred to using grow to
discuss hair, plants, and grass. All of this growth is naturalistic. And
all of this growth can occur in the absence of *human intervention*.

The same can not be said for economic growth or the growing of a business.
Shortly after I finished writing my thesis on the corporate use and abuse
of "green" language, I could have thrown around all kinds of big words
about what is going on in this kind of language use - heavy ideological
implications (and I don't mean that in the party politics way). I have
since forgotten some of those big words, and besides I wouldn't use them on
this list anyway <g>.

My point is that it's likely more than just the "sound" of something that
strikes us as funny or odd. That is, I doubt it's just the phonology of the
sentence that's buzzing in your year. I suspect that some of us who find
this funny might be hearing some of that ideological rattling.

Just a thought late in the afternoon. Put the TW spin on this as appropriate.

Greg Cento
greg -at- focus-systems -dot- on -dot- ca
Focus Automation Systems Inc.