And again!

A reader came up with this link: http://www.plexoft.com/SBF/E06.html. The owner of the page dissects the language used by our already famous Chris Cantell on his website:

"European Young Leaders Council. ``[A] two week exercise based on the principals of Six Sigma and the Fifth Discipline.'' The management training-and-cheerleading field is notorious for language incompetence, and this tiny example is typical.
The program is a business activity of SigEx Ventures, and there's a ``SigEx Fellowship Program'' which appears to be a product promotion in the form of a lottery. SigEx Ventures was founded by Frédéric Artru and Christopher M. Cantell. A fine example of self-reverence occurs at paragraph three of the grant application guidelines:

The conception of the [SigEx] Foundry came about with the meltdown of the telecommunications industry. This meltdown can be explained by Cantell's Law that states, ``Time value approaches zero.'' This means that over time, products lose their value and without additional services and technology advancement, they will eventually become obsolete.

What the word ``means'' means in the preceding paragraph is interesting. In a first approximation, ``means'' here means ``doesn't mean,'' since there is no reason why ``time value approaches'' should mean ``over time, value approaches'' even in the most abased forms of business English. One might try to improve the definition of ``means'' in this instance to ``is incoherently phrased with the intention of meaning,'' but that may not quite give the writer enough credit for realizing his intention. A common technique of prophets is to take an ordinary idea (``some commodities become cheaper in real terms'' is an ordinary idea) and express it obscurely or incomprehensibly. By ``discovering'' or explicating the meaning of this expression or riddle, the prophet can achieve the illusion of wisdom.

The SigEx Fellows Program has an address on Primrose Path, in the US state most associated with underwater-land swindles. I learned about it through spam."