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The Green Troll
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 2:26 pm
Post subject: OUTSOURCE? |
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In article <19971231150001.KAA00790@ladder02.news.aol.com>, SLHinton17
wrote:
| Quote: | In glancing over a piece of spam, advertising a book on home
employment for
computer users, I came across a verb that is new to me --
"outsource." It was
used as follows:
. . .It is a fact that many national and multi-national firms
outsource work
to homeworkers.> Is this a common word? What does it mean?
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Why is 'outsource' often intransitive, while these are transitive:
outbid, outdo, outfit, outgrow, outlast, outmatch, outpace, outrage,
outsmart, and outvote?
-- Spud <http://www.rev.net/~aloe/couchpotato> |
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Odysseus
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 4:20 pm
Post subject: Re: OUTSOURCE? |
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The Green Troll wrote:
| Quote: | Why is 'outsource' often intransitive, while these are transitive:
outbid, outdo, outfit, outgrow, outlast, outmatch, outpace, outrage,
outsmart, and outvote? |
Most of those instances of "out-" refer to surpassing something,
rather than more literally indicating a outward direction, and their
object is the thing or person to which a comparison is being made.
Note that they change their meaning or become unidiomatic if
separated. "Outfit" is different; like "outsource" I'd expect its
behaviour to be similar to that of the verb without the prefix.
--
Odysseus |
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Don Phillipson
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:20 pm
Post subject: Re: OUTSOURCE? |
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| Quote: | In article <19971231150001.KAA00790@ladder02.news.aol.com>, SLHinton17
wrote:
In glancing over a piece of spam, advertising a book on home
employment for
computer users, I came across a verb that is new to me --
"outsource." It was
used as follows:
. .It is a fact that many national and multi-national firms
outsource work to homeworkers.
Is this a common word? What does it mean?
|
Outsource means contracting a business function
to an independent contractor instead of doing
it yourself. Many businesses used to employ cooks
and cleaners for a staff restaurant. Nowadays they
find it cheaper to contract for a catering company
to run their staff restaurant, i.e. they outsource their
food needs. Several new businesses have arisen
for this purpose, e.g. payroll companies. These
are paid by contract to issue paycheques, collect
income tax and send it to the government etc: i.e.
the payroll function has been outsourced.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada) |
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meirman
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:38 am
Post subject: Re: OUTSOURCE? |
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Were payroll companies the first? I think it was because it was
worth their while to buy a computer and solicit business from places
that didn't want to get mired in computers, or weren't big enough to
make full use of the kind of computer that was for sale. ADP is big,
at least in the eastern US.
I hadn't thought of it, maybe the success with payrolls caused them to
go on to company cafeterias and restaurants, medical clinics, etc.
s/ meirman If you are emailing me please
say if you are posting the same response.
Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis, 7 years
Chicago, 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
Baltimore 20 years |
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Steve Hayes
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:28 am
Post subject: Re: OUTSOURCE? |
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On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 08:20:22 -0400, "Don Phillipson"
<d.phillipson@ttrryytteell.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Outsource means contracting a business function
to an independent contractor instead of doing
it yourself. Many businesses used to employ cooks
and cleaners for a staff restaurant. Nowadays they
find it cheaper to contract for a catering company
to run their staff restaurant, i.e. they outsource their
food needs. Several new businesses have arisen
for this purpose, e.g. payroll companies. These
are paid by contract to issue paycheques, collect
income tax and send it to the government etc: i.e.
the payroll function has been outsourced.
|
And the corollary is usually "core business".
The board of directors or whatever spend a few days in a bosberaad (dunno what
that is in AmE or BrE or OzE) and come up with a mission statement that
states their core business with a lot of inspirational thoughts about it
(thany you, Patience Strong), and then decide to outsource everything else.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk |
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