Does ‘Power Point (something) away’ have currency in the English language, or is its use limited to this one columnist?

There was the following sentence in Maureen Dowd’s column titled “When cruelty is cute,” in August 14 New York Times:

"Unlike some of the right-wing ayatollahs, Ryan doesn’t threaten with moral and cultural gusts of sulfur. He seems more like a friendly guidance counselor who wants to teach us how to live, get us in shape, PowerPoint away the social safety net to make the less advantaged more self-reliant, as he makes the rich richer. Burning the village it takes to save it, so we can avoid the fiscal cliff, or as he and his fellow conservative Cassandras ominously call it, “the debt bomb.”

I don’t get surprised to find novel words in mainstream English language newspapers. 'Etch A Sketch,' laser-focused,’ ‘pillow-plumping romance,’ ‘slogans vs. haircuts,’ ‘Democratic sharpie’ – examples are abound even in the past few weeks. It’s rather a fun for me to fish for those ‘quirky’ expressions, though I never wish to emulate them.

With that said, I understand ‘PowerPoint away’ simply means 'erase (clear) away something'.

Is this expression becoming current as ‘Xerox a copy,’ ‘google etymology,’ ‘tweet with sb.’ are, or just an ephemeral coinage of Maureen Dowd’s?

Solution 1:

Ms. Dowd is a productive, if needlessly neologistic, columnist for the New York Times.

From the Wikipeida entry: "Dowd's columns have been described as letters to her mother, whom friends credit as 'the source, the fountain of Maureen’s humor and her Irish sensibilities and her intellectual take.' Dowd herself has said, 'she is in my head in the sense that I want to inform and amuse the reader.' Dowd's columns are distinguished by an acerbic, often polemical writing style."

An assessment of whether particular words or phrases have become current is necessarily a subjective one, and dependent upon the size, distribution, and homogeneity of the population you are assessing. With that caveat, here is my subjective answer:

Dowd uses a slangy, conversational style that is quite distinct from written English. Her choice, and coinage, of words, seek to foster the sense of an ongoing, free-wheeling conversation among friends. As such, she uses words in the way that a "typical" New Yorker might in daily, spoken conversation.

On one hand, she will not wait until a phrase has become common or entered the lexicon before shes uses it in her column. On the other, she does not use jargon that is "of the moment" in the sense of being slangy teenager cant, New York city street patois, or passing fashionable curiosities. Writing for a broad audience, her style is to titillate and amuse, not confuse.

My sense is that the typical New York resident would understand the meaning and the spirit of her columns if read out loud, but would not choose to use those newly coined words or clever phrases in their own e-mail or written communciations.

Her use of the brand name PowerPoint, here as a verb, references the popular, and increasingly unpopular, software program from Microsoft. PowerPoint has acquired, in modern American English, a sense of organizational futility perhaps similar to the way "memo" did a half-century ago. When used in colloquial conversation, PowerPoint often implies either an overly bureaucratic (particuarly when excessive length or small font size are cited) or superficial treatment of the subject matter.

In creating the phrasal verb, Dowd chose "away" (she could just as easily have chosen "over", "out" or "to death", for example) in order to create a sense of breezy dismissiveness. Her choice is colored by other common phrasal verbs such as "whisk away" and "wish away", both of which have the twin senses of cursory attention and a desire to have the object minimized or disappear from the scene.

So, in summary, Ms. Dowd's constructions are coy, clever and comprehensible without being common, current or canonical.

Solution 2:

I really believe that the phrase is not "PowerPoint away". The 'erase' or 'clear away' that you deduce comes entirely from the word "away"- shovel away, eat away, chip away... The word PowerPoint is merely there to tell how it's being erased or cleared away. I.e., via PowerPoint. And it's use here intends to point out the stupidity or naiveté of the notion that it can actually be done via PowerPoint alone.

Solution 3:

PowerPoint is presentation software, so I'll venture the guess that Dowd is saying that Ryan tries give us warm fuzzies with presentations of how things could and should be, things that are easier said than done, things that look good on paper but are hard-won in reality.

Solution 4:

The phrase brings to mind Dilbert's infamous "Death by PowerPoint" (a fate with which too many of us are unfortunately familiar).

However, the point of the phrase in this usage is probably best explained by the conclusion of this column:

[PowerPoint] creates the illusion of participation without the sweaty bits. Getting into issues requires the hard work of questioning assumptions, examining evidence, determining values and accepting compromises.

That's discussion, not presentation.

Maureen Dowd's column is making the subtle point that Ryan's plan is presentation, not discussion.