Words: braindump, n.

THE OTHER day, the New York Times published a "Guide to Microspeak", including a dictionary of the new terms coined by workers at Microsoft. Unlike the usual dictionaries of geektalk, however, this contains some interesting concepts.

The best of the batch is braindump, which means: "a process by which a departing Microsoft employee or contractor imparts the essential information vital to performing his or her job to the designated replacement".

Less usefully, they have come up with T.L.A. (three-letter acronym) and E.O.D. (a T.L.A for "end of day" which takes as long to say as the phrase itself). But the most disturbing entry is "ask", used as a noun to mean question. After turning nouns into verbs for so long, have the Americans now gone into reverse?