Venga-izing

At Renkoo we use the word venga-izing a lot. For example, right now we're trying to roll out some features before year-end, so "management" venga-izes everyone to work faster.

In researching the etymological roots of the word venga, we traced its origins to January 30, 2005, when Tim Converse posted his now-classic Venga venga venga!! post:

I do actually think that if there's one way that managers... can persuade themselves that they're adding value when they're not, it's by spending their day shouting "Venga!" Because if the people they talking to are already motivated and working hard, then they may be accomplishing exactly nothing.  Now, of course, I do think that most of us do add value --- but it's usually through other things like letting people know about things they didn't already know, and making priority decisions, and whatnot. But a surprising number of utterances can be usefully translated into venga-speak.

Tim does go on to use the phrase "monotonically vengizable (that's a technical term)" in the post, but that's the only variation on the term venga that is used there. In the eleven months since then, an entire vocabulary has evolved around the concept, creating words out of thin air that don't even presently exist right now as a Yahoowhack or Googlewhack.

What is the Interweb for, if not to invent words? So let's humbly submit the following additions to the vernacular.

Venga-izing, the art of yelling "Venga! Venga! Venga!". I've actually heard someone use the word venga-ing, but venga-izing seems more popular. Alternate spellings vengaizing and vengaing just don't look right. The hyphen adds just the right amount of dramatic pause.

Venga-ization, the act of venga-izing somone. Popularly used as the sound of deadlines whooshes by. Alternate spelling vengaization again seems like it's missing something. The hyphen is like a fresh sprig of parsley.

Venga-ize (not vengaize) is the verb.

It's fun to use venga-speak in a sentence. Here, let me try: Marissa Mayer sure does venga-ize the rumormongers every time she declares, "There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever." Of course there will not be flying doodads. Because that wouldn't feel Googley.

Am I using the words properly? Well, Tim says he is not a linguistic prescriptivist, and that language is defined by usage. And he would know -- he is, after all, the Matt Cutts of Yahoo! (Though at the moment I can't remember if he officially changed his job title on his business card to "Matt Cutts". Maybe instead I should just say that Matt Cutts is the Tim Converse of Google. Yeah, that's the ticket!)

Ok, so for proper use of the words, let's let the Interweb decide. Everyone knows that five star product management is all about the venga-ization, baby. So please, venga-ize away!!!

...

P.S. -- While we're adding words to the lexicon, Kevin Murphy wants to know if someone who is both a yapper and shipper is called a yipper or a shapper? I prefer the latter...

Comments

[Tim Converse]

Hmm. I'm thinking that a shapper should be a lion-doesn't-have-to-roar kind of shipper who yaps occasionally. And a yipper is an excitable yapper who barks loudly about small shipments. :)

[Bjorn Tipling]

I see, but what does 'venga' actually mean?

[Kathy]

shapper all the way

[Adam]

Bjorn:

From Tim's Venga post:

An amusing sidelight of the Tour de France is the one coach who seems to spend the entire race in a car right next to his prize rider, with the window open, yelling this over and over again: "Venga venga venga!!! Venga venga venga venga!!!" I think it's a coach of one of the Basque teams, and the words are my transliteration, but I remember one of the commentators saying that this meant something like "Go go go go!! Faster faster faster!!"

Then again, when I use babelfish to spanish-to-english translate venga, babelfish tells me it means come.

By the way, I'm happy to see that when I type "venga-izing" into Yahoo! Search and Flickr, I get results now. w00t!!!

Still nothing from delicious and Google yet, though. They're slow.

[Dean]

Its only a matter of time until google finds this page. Then everyone will know!