Liver Rage

Ever heard of a Liver Rage?

You might be thinking of this:

Ok that is a representative plushie picture in place of the real liver, which looks something like this:

Besides the point about how our dear livers might not be able to take it if we ingest too much alcohol and junk, what I really mean to talk about is the rage I got from seeing another one of these stupid flyers that took up space in my mailbox again (see picture below in its uncensored glory).

I was about to reflexively throw Cijay Tew's picture into the trash-bin when I saw the cheesy, tacky, tawdry lines written on it.

Perhaps you might like to try reading it out aloud too. *Snigger*

Did you catch the phrase of relevant interest?

Well, if not, here is what I was cringing about:

Circled in red: "Leverage on..."

We covered this in one of the sessions in Lexi class recently and I knew just exactly what prof Ooi was talking about when we zoomed into those 2 words. I mean, seriously? This construction is one of the most feeble attempts by Singaporeans to sound cheem.

But to what end?

I came across this phrase when I was working part-time in the past for various private and public sector companies. Through a whole lot of emails, it was apparent that this construction was commonplace among the white-collar crowd in Singapore.

At the first, I was not too sure about the meaning in corporate-speak, but I (correctly) guessed it by associating it with a mechanical device known as the simple lever. However, it was not before some far-fetched metaphorical associations were made since "to lever" connotes the idea of "wrenching/prizing/wresting/heaving open" (i.e. a forceful act must be done to obtain some benefit; therefore you prize open the stubborn lid of the cookie tin to satisfy your crumbly cravings).

To be honest, I would actually think that the metaphor involved should have been something more to do with a catapult, slingshot, or trampoline; things that convert stored potential energy into kinetic force with propulsion involved. After all, aren't we piggybacking upon Mr. Cijay's expertise?

To Lever is to Lever-age?

And since I was wondering how did this particular sense of the word leverage come into Singaporean corporate parlance, I looked up some dictionaries and these were some of the results I obtained:

Leverage

(trans. and intr. V) Typically U.S.

1. To lever; specifically to speculate or cause to speculate financially on borrowed capital expecting profits made to be greater than the interest payable.

(OED)

Leverage

–verb (used with object)

5. To exert power or influence

6. to provide with leverage (financially-speaking)

7. to invest or arrange (invested funds) using leverage

(Dictionary.com)

There you have it.

Unless someone can explain to me how the meaning transfer of the action done by a lever can result in the same meaning of "banking on/relying on", I think I'll still stick with sentences like this:

"In fact, we could all rely on his expertise to get the best results"

Doesn't that sound all the more perspicuous? Let's not get too pretentious with using big words for simple things, shall we?

Before I end, incidentally, Mel previously did a similar post on the use of "revert" by corporate emailers. Do check it out.

My liver rages on.