The ABCDs of being understood
A quick note : never say "crud" in a meeting if the thing you are speaking about has anything to do with reading or writing data.
For example, I was just in a meeting when somebody said, "This does a lot of crud...there's all this crud here...". In the picture were a few data components, and he was literally (I think) using the term "crud" to refer to "stuff". The problem is I had to stop try to figure out if he was talking about other components and interworkings in the picture, or if he meant "CRUD" (Create, Read, Update, Delete). This makes listeners focus on the wrong part of what you're trying to say.
Wikipedia : CRUD
Helpful Thesaurus 101
Instead of "crud" (in the truest sense of the word), say instead:
- stuff
- clutter
- things
- crap
- mess
- interworkings
On the flip side, Instead of "CRUD", say instead:
- [data] operations
- data management
[I hate explaining things like this, but the title is a play off of "The ABCs of ..." and "ABCD", which is a synonym for CRUD, and stands for Add, Browse, Change, Delete.
