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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
"Jobsworth" sounds like an excellent answer, probably better than the word that first occurred to me given the definition and its length of nine letters: "asskisser." It's not strictly correct, but probably it is what such a person would be labelled by his or her coworkers.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
maverick: that link you posted to the Modern UK idiom was so funny it brought tears to my eyes. Thank you so very much! It's only 9:00 AM and you made my day.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
retentive
IP - This made my day!
CapK - Just how distant is "yonks ago"?
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
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Here's some synonyms we've discussed and at least one new one. The more I think about it, the more I think sycophant may be the word Jess will reveal to us:
[brown]or Entry Word: sycophant
Function: noun
Text: a base or servilely attentive flatterer and self-seeker <sycophants who slavishly curried favor with the king>
Synonyms apple-polisher, bootlick, bootlicker, ||brownnose, ||brownnoser, ||clawback, creature, ||easy rider, footlicker, groveler, lickspit, lickspittle, minion, reptile, spaniel, ||suck, toad, toadeater, toadier, toady, truckler, yes-man; PARASITE
Related Word flunky, gopher, lackey, slave, stooge; flatterer, self-seeker; snob, tuft-hunter [/brown] or
The above is from MW's synonym finder.
Bootlicking regards,
Wordwooing Ain't tuft-hunter grand?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
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the worthless word for the day (at some point in the indeterminate past was): tufthunter someone that seeks association with persons of title or high social status: snob; a toady [Brit] from tuft, a gold tassel formerly worn by titled undergraduates at Cambridge and Oxford http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/(just pluggin' away)
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Just moving this up so JessCC might see it and tell us what her teacher wanted her to find...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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yeahbut® even if you don't like the sound of it, I'm still betting on jobsworth, since like most good quizes the answer lies within the text of the clue :)
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear maverick,
It's probably going to be jobsworth because Jess lives in Malaysia and this teacher is probably grounded in a British education....jobsworth's being British slang.
Still don't like the word jobsworth--and, if archaic words were ok, toadeater would still be my favorite, but, since they're not, sycophant would be the word I'd use in formal writing.
Best muleheadedness,
WordWon't
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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sure, but it carries little of the same meaning. The particular flourish of jobsworth is to suggest someone who is not sycophantic to a person but to an institution - that they have so far lost their sense of scale and human values they rather elevate the job byond the worth it serves.
Hence a popular UK TV show years back had a regular Jobsworth Award, which (iirc) mainly consisted of a massively braided cap, an ornate uniform, etc to denote someone who prizes the uniform above the task, the rules above the game...
in short, in the words of the original question "someone who always obeys the rules of his/her job exactly, even when it would be more sensible not to..."
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
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Dear maverick,
Point very well taken! You've now won me over with no argument to jobsworth. (Institution of the job over argument of person of the boss...makes perfectly good sense for the solution...)
How sweet is peace!
Wordwind
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