I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Words and Phrases for Which My Boss Has Used “Benign” As A Synonym

--small

--insignificant

--not legally actionable

--should not take much [of YOUR] time [nb: false, false, false]

--something which is neither here nor there; moot point

--low-cost

--easy

--annoying

--piddling/trifling

What “Benign” Actually Means

be·nign

adj \bi-ˈnīn\

1: of a gentle disposition : gracious

2 a : showing kindness and gentleness

b : favorable, wholesome

3a : of a mild type or character that does not threaten health or life; especially : not becoming cancerous

b : having no significant effect : harmless

Actual Synonyms for “Benign”

anodyne, harmless, hurtless, innocent, innocuous, inoffensive, safe

"Can we -- can we have PILLS, and COOK the corn??"

A List of Some Things I Reject

--The existence of a person legally named Channing Tatum.

--The alleged genius of Arcade Fire.

--Macaroons.

--Work parties on non-work time.

--The idea that anyone, anywhere thinks Family Guy is funny.

--The notion of "high meat," which is a near-criminally misleadingly light name for a very, very fucking horrifying thing: Raw, rotted meat, which certain culty freaks eat ON PURPOSE. I learned about it in a New Yorker article, and holy rictus-faced SHATNER do I wish I hadn't.

Now SERIOUSLY, dammit -- I have my rants (the raison d'etre of this blog), and I have my strong opinions about food, and all that, but I try really hard not to comment on what other people eat (at least while they're eating it in my vicinity, because godDAMN is it rude to disparage what's on your friend's plate). But this is waaaay beyond tolerable. This is a hill I will fight and die on.

The online version doesn't mention the high meat, so I'll share from the print version:

Torma ducked into the back of the house and returned with a swing-top jar in his hands. Inside lay a piece of organic beef, badly spoiled. It was afloat in an ochre-colored puddle of its own decay, the muscle and slime indistinguishable, like a slug. High meat is the flesh of any animal that has been allowed to decompose.
...
When Torma unclamped his jar, a sickly-sweet miasma filled the air -- an odor as natural as it was repellent. Decaying meat produces its own peculiar scent molecules, I later
learned, with names like putrescine and cadaverine. I could still smell them on my clothes hours later. Torma stuck two fingers down the jar and fished out a long, wet sliver. "Want a taste?" he said.

You're welcome, Internets. Who wants lunch?

"I don't have to outlast Dunder-Mifflin. I just have to outlast you."

Yesterday's Team Vision & Strategy Meeting, By the Numbers

Total hours duration: 4.5

Number of large cartoon drawings of horrified, stricken-seeming faces drawn in my notebook: 1

Tally of what my brain said while my manager was speaking:

STFU: 21

YOOYFE*: 7

OH! IRONY!: 3

Times it looked like the consultant wanted to kill us all with a thick and high-powered jet of fire: 3

Absolute neologisms: 1

Specifically: The word "family" used as a verb. Ex.: "Tell us how those things family together."

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*You're out of your fucking element

"You can get seventy miles to the gallon on this Hog."

So hey, drivers of automobiles, could I ask y'all a favor? Could you please, if you go to the trouble and expense of getting a vanity license plate for your motor vehicle, go to the further trouble of making it something I can read and understand quickly, so that I don't almost rear-end you on the highway, or miss my exit, or get a spike of annoyance-adrenaline straight to the pineal gland because I don't fucking get whatever asininity you decided to scribble on the back of your stupid dumb Dodge Stratus?

Seriously. I get more goddamned annoyed at the ones I can't decipher than at the ones I can and am incensed by (e.g. the giant Suburban I saw at a gas station once with "BPROLIF", ugh, STFU).

But then again, I'm not one for vehicle personalization in general. One, stickers and decals and whatnot degrade quickly and thus look crappy quickly. Two -- and more importantly for me, having read way too much John Douglas -- the entire rest of the automobile-driving universe does not need to know anything about me or my family. Those stickers you can get that show the exact composition of your family? Yikes, really? Political bumper stickers? Way to get keyed, or piss off a cop and get yourself a ticket for going 37 in a 35. Places you've traveled, bands you like, alcohol you favor? Honestly, for once I'm not Judgy McO'Judgerson on this, it's just -- that stuff is just not something Jimmy Joe Jack on the turnpike or Marvin Creeply out in the parking lot needs to know, you get me?

Although I do appreciate the "W" people identifying themselves to me so that I may shun them, so there's that.