per
It's been almost four months since I entered the corporate world. One of the first things I learned here was a new word- per. No, not miles per hour, not revolutions per minute, and not slices of pizza per person. All of a sudden I was receiving emails from higher-ups saying, "Per this" or "Per that". Per per per per per!!! I was puzzled. How could "per" start a sentence? It made no sense! It's not even a full word! It's like half a word, like Pho (pronounced "fuh"). It's supposed to be something per something, signifying some sort or ratio or proportion. Per our conversation? Per my last email? And how could this word I've never used in this way be used in almost every email I read?
Now I'm not dumb. Using the context that the word was used, I figured it meant something like, "in reference to" or "according to", but for some reason I was too scared to use it in an email. It was used so much, that I felt the pressure to use it too. I couldn't just write, "According to your last email", or "In reference to our conversation", then everybody would know that I didn't know what per meant. They'd read it and think, "Why didn't he use per? Everyone uses per. He must be young, stupid, and illiterate."
Until this day I haven't used the word per in an email. I'm just not comfortable using a new half-word as the first word in my emails. The first word in an email is so important. If I screw it up, I look like a fool. If I don't use it, hopefully nobody notices. I just hope nobody at work reads my blog.
posted by pierre 1:12 PM
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