We were on the plane, a few minutes out of Portland, my two co-workers and I, and we were talking — as always — about technology. Co-Worker One (hereinafter referred to as "CW1") had just taken out his new web-enabled cell phone and was demonstrating to Co-Worker Two (hereinafter referred to as "CW2") some of its features. In the middle of his demonstration, CW1 paused.

"Just think," he said. "A hundred years ago, this kind of technology would have been inconceivable to doctors and their patients." We’re all three of us in the e-Health industry, which is why our focus in many of these conversations tends to be on doctors, patients, and how to use the Web to faciliatate communication between them. "I mean, just the idea of a telephone at all would be completely foreign!"

"Yep," replied CW2. "It’s pretty amazing."

CW1 went on. "And just the idea of taking an airplane to get from Portland to Sacramento in less than two hours… a hundred years ago, it would have taken a week, if they were lucky. And can you imagine using a web-enabled phone to browse a website back then?"

To which CW2 replied, laughing, "Can you even imagine using language like, ‘Using a web-enabled phone to browse a website’?"

The conversation then turned to coming up with more and more obscure ways of using language. I pretty much won with, "Our mission is to enhance and facilitate the migration of neurologically-focused business practices from transient processes to a fully integrated suite of web-oriented management processes." (I didn’t like using "processes" twice so close together, but I had to think fast at the time).

As soon as I had uttered that, both CW1 and CW2 stared at me. "Where in God’s name did you learn to talk like that, Richard?" CW2 — who also happens to be my manager — asked in awe.

I shrugged modestly. "Well," I said, "the last department I worked in at the University had been infested with Gartner Group terminology. Plus," I continued, "I worked in Human Resources for three years. Sometimes, it just kind of rubs off on you."

The really scary thing, though, is that when I thought about the sentence I had just uttered, I realized that I knew precisely what was meant by it. I meant that our job was to take bad business management practices that were on paper and transform them into good business practices using the Web as a tool. But somehow when you get into the world of startups, you stop saying things like, "Bad ways of doing business," and you start saying things like, "Transient modalities".

But the worst part, really, was when I was writing an e-mail to my mother this morning. I was telling her that I was worried that I hadn’t yet figured out how the company I’m working for will be making money in the long run (which does not, of course, mean that they won’t be making money — just that I haven’t been involved in figuring it out); but instead of saying that, I wrote to her, "I’m concerned because this company has not yet identified a revenue stream."

I didn’t realize I had written that until I’d sent it.

I told CW1 and CW2 about that on the flight back. Both of them complimented me for actually e-mailing my mother, but they both agreed that it was funny as hell that I had done that; and then they both admitted to talking the same way to their wives from time to time.

But still, I can’t believe I wrote that. To my own mother. Excuse me, but now I feel like I have to wash my mouth out with soap.