bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2016), p. 42
Many of us at Global Affairs Canada (GAC) have had the privilege of working with staff from the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), either at Headquarters or while on posting. While it is immediately clear to us that they are great people to have in our corner – capable professionals of the highest caliber – our respective lexicons and work cultures are sometimes less clear. As we at GAC know well, lost in translation moments are often best resolved with a bit of a laugh; in that vein, here is a humourous look at a few of the more common (or just amusing) sources of misunderstanding.
DND/CAF Speak
Ack (in an email reply)
OBE
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
BLUF (at the beginning of an email)
Closest Alligator to the Canoe
(or Boat)
Let me just socialize this brief
Can you send me that on the High
side / Low side?
FYSA
PT (as in, I’m off for some PT time)
Ready Aye Ready (as a closing in an
email, for example)
NSTR
Left of bang / Right of bang
Battle Rhythm
PowerPoint Ranger
Flash to bang
She’s over there chatting up
the GO FOs
The meeting starts at 10:00
Common reactions
I must scour my missive to determine the source of surprise
or concern and attempt to resolve it immediately.
A misspelled woodwind instrument? *Google Search*
An Order of the British Empire?
WTF?
That’s one combination I’ve not seen before.
Where exactly were you canoeing, Sir/Ma’am?
And here I thought we were the social ones.
I have a 50% chance of getting this right, I suppose.
Why can’t they just say FYI like everyone else?
Gee, sorry to hear that (thinking: you spend a lot of time
in parent-teacher meetings).
Popeye? Pirates?
New Kids on the Block—Step by Step, ooh Baby. Yeah,
probably not, but it was fun to be nostalgic for a minute.
Does one’s physical location really make a difference to the
final outcome?
No idea what you mean, but it sounds like you’ve got some
serious stuff to do today.
*An image of a group of pre-teens dressed in bad ninja
costumes drafting a deck flashes through your mind*
I hope we’re only talking about a thunder storm here.
To the outside listener, you realize that doesn’t sound
particularly flattering, right?
Ok, I’ll be there at 10:00.
What they really meant
Acknowledged.
Overtaken by events. As in, “no need for your input into this
brief, it has been OBE.”
Oh, I get it.
Bottom Line up Front – approximate GAC equivalent to
Summary, except DND/CAF will almost certainly be more to
the point.
The most urgent priority. As in, “sorry I’m late, there was
another alligator closer to the canoe.”
Run it up their side to gauge reactions (somewhat equivalent
to our heads up).
High side = Classified
Low side = Unclassified
For your situational awareness. See, it does sound more
official than FYI, doesn’t it?
Physical training. CAF have PT built into their work-day
(nice, huh?).
This person is almost certainly from the Royal Canadian
Navy—this is a typical sign-off of theirs.
Nothing significant to report.
Pre-event / Post-event. As in, we need to better coordinate
our efforts left of bang.
Day-to-day of maintaining the bureaucratic machine. As in
“we’ve got an intense battle rhythm today; let’s get through
these slides, folks.”
The term actually comes from the elite US Army Rangers,
meant to imply that someone is off working magic with
PowerPoint, which is not unusual since DND drafts decks
for nearly everything.
The time between the event and the likely consequences/
effects.
General Officer / Flag Officer (DG and above would be an
approximate equivalent)
The meeting actually starts at 9:45. If you show up at 10:00,
you are late. But that’s ok, you’re from GAC and none of what
you say or do makes any sense to DND/CAF anyway.
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2016), p. 42. Read the rest of this issue →
