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This seems a pretty accurate description to me, although I haven't heard of the song cited.
The OED entry for Jobsworth is as follows.... http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/jobsworth?view=uk -- LiamE 14:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Taylor's song comfortably predates the George Melly reference in the article. -- Bonalaw 20:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Best to properly define the old idiom from which the term was extracted to explain recent derisive uses for the neologism. JonMar 16:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't see a contradiction in the claim "To do that is more than my job's worth". It is claimed that doing "that" will cost him his "job". The claim is that he will be fired if he complies with the request. It's the civilian equivalent of only following orders. Jasen betts ( talk) 11:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Ugh, what was wrong with "their"? The new version is ugly and I've never seen Wikipedia use this style {"him" with an asterisk and explanatory note}. I think this breaks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_self-references . The linguists on language log have a whole series of postings pointing out that singular uses of "they" and "their" are valid and used in eveything from Shakespeare to the King James bible (e.g. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001582.html ). I'll revert if no-one objects ...
The article states that the American term company man is equivalent to jobsworth. That wasn't my understanding of either term, so I read the Comapany Man article, and it confirms that the meaning is completely different. A 'company man' is basically a 'yes man', while a jobsworth is an individual who takes pride in inflexibly enforcing petty rules and regulations. -- 80.176.142.11 ( talk) 20:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
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-- CopyToWiktionaryBot 04:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
The Urban Dictionary as a reference for Wikipedia? Surely that should be the other way around?! 82.43.194.184 ( talk) 14:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Atleast it doesn't reference unwords which seems to have a really oddball definition Jasen betts ( talk) 11:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
I believe that the shop steward Fred Kite (Peter Sellers) in the film I'm All Right Jack would also be one of the earliest 'jobsworths' to appear on film.
Channelwatcher ( talk) 21:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
"Not in my job description" etc. is a completely attitude to that of a jobsworth. 91.106.128.85 ( talk) 10:13, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
It could be either. It's a colloquialism. Perhaps you should consult the reference manual of colloquialisms to prove your point? Oh wait there isn't one, hence making it unprovable. Don't you have anything more consequential to debate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.211.54 ( talk) 00:03, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm just highlighting the poorly written and confused main page.
My interpretation of 'jobsworth' is an individual that refuses to do anything that is not in the precise terms of their job description. The main page is simply stating it wrongly when it is asserted that a 'jobsworth' is a person that won't break rules. Look, no employee with any sense is going to actively break rules if they want to keep their job! A 'jobsworth' is not a person who refuses to break rules. A person who refuses to break rules is an honest employee. It also seems to equate - quite wrongly in my view - taking initiative with rule breaking. (Who wrote this nonsense?!) I am going to remove the offending sentences. John2o2o2o ( talk) 11:54, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
What does the original phrase, "that's more than my job's worth" mean? Does "worth" have the same meaning as "value" here?
I could understand if it was "that's less than my job's worth", e.g. "I won't take a hundred-pound bribe, because I would get sacked, and my job is worth more than one hundred pounds to me." I suppose the opposite would be "I'm not going to go out of my way to help you, because I don't get paid enough for that" or "your request is beyond my pay grade". However, I always took the phrase as having an element of fear: "I won't help you because I'm afraid of getting fired". 184.70.186.150 ( talk) 16:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
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This seems a pretty accurate description to me, although I haven't heard of the song cited.
The OED entry for Jobsworth is as follows.... http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/jobsworth?view=uk -- LiamE 14:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Taylor's song comfortably predates the George Melly reference in the article. -- Bonalaw 20:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Best to properly define the old idiom from which the term was extracted to explain recent derisive uses for the neologism. JonMar 16:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't see a contradiction in the claim "To do that is more than my job's worth". It is claimed that doing "that" will cost him his "job". The claim is that he will be fired if he complies with the request. It's the civilian equivalent of only following orders. Jasen betts ( talk) 11:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Ugh, what was wrong with "their"? The new version is ugly and I've never seen Wikipedia use this style {"him" with an asterisk and explanatory note}. I think this breaks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_self-references . The linguists on language log have a whole series of postings pointing out that singular uses of "they" and "their" are valid and used in eveything from Shakespeare to the King James bible (e.g. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001582.html ). I'll revert if no-one objects ...
The article states that the American term company man is equivalent to jobsworth. That wasn't my understanding of either term, so I read the Comapany Man article, and it confirms that the meaning is completely different. A 'company man' is basically a 'yes man', while a jobsworth is an individual who takes pride in inflexibly enforcing petty rules and regulations. -- 80.176.142.11 ( talk) 20:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
![]() | This page has been
transwikied to
Wiktionary. The article has content that is useful at Wiktionary. Therefore the article can be found at either here or here ( logs 1 logs 2.) Note: This means that the article has been copied to the Wiktionary Transwiki namespace for evaluation and formatting. It does not mean that the article is in the Wiktionary main namespace, or that it has been removed from Wikipedia's. Furthermore, the Wiktionarians might delete the article from Wiktionary if they do not find it to be appropriate for the Wiktionary. Removing this tag will usually trigger CopyToWiktionaryBot to re-transwiki the entry. This article should have been removed from Category:Copy to Wiktionary and should not be re-added there. |
-- CopyToWiktionaryBot 04:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
The Urban Dictionary as a reference for Wikipedia? Surely that should be the other way around?! 82.43.194.184 ( talk) 14:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Atleast it doesn't reference unwords which seems to have a really oddball definition Jasen betts ( talk) 11:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
I believe that the shop steward Fred Kite (Peter Sellers) in the film I'm All Right Jack would also be one of the earliest 'jobsworths' to appear on film.
Channelwatcher ( talk) 21:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
"Not in my job description" etc. is a completely attitude to that of a jobsworth. 91.106.128.85 ( talk) 10:13, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
It could be either. It's a colloquialism. Perhaps you should consult the reference manual of colloquialisms to prove your point? Oh wait there isn't one, hence making it unprovable. Don't you have anything more consequential to debate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.211.54 ( talk) 00:03, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm just highlighting the poorly written and confused main page.
My interpretation of 'jobsworth' is an individual that refuses to do anything that is not in the precise terms of their job description. The main page is simply stating it wrongly when it is asserted that a 'jobsworth' is a person that won't break rules. Look, no employee with any sense is going to actively break rules if they want to keep their job! A 'jobsworth' is not a person who refuses to break rules. A person who refuses to break rules is an honest employee. It also seems to equate - quite wrongly in my view - taking initiative with rule breaking. (Who wrote this nonsense?!) I am going to remove the offending sentences. John2o2o2o ( talk) 11:54, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
What does the original phrase, "that's more than my job's worth" mean? Does "worth" have the same meaning as "value" here?
I could understand if it was "that's less than my job's worth", e.g. "I won't take a hundred-pound bribe, because I would get sacked, and my job is worth more than one hundred pounds to me." I suppose the opposite would be "I'm not going to go out of my way to help you, because I don't get paid enough for that" or "your request is beyond my pay grade". However, I always took the phrase as having an element of fear: "I won't help you because I'm afraid of getting fired". 184.70.186.150 ( talk) 16:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Jobsworth. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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This message was posted before February 2018.
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have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
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source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 16:51, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 11:22, 8 August 2019 (UTC)