Thread regarding Ford layoffs

The Ford Executive Who Documented Colleagues’ Verbal Slip-Ups

Mike O’Brien kept a meticulous log of mixed metaphors and malaprops uttered in meetings over a decade; ‘too many cooks in the soup’

March 26, 2025 at 5:30 am ET

Mike O’Brien filled six whiteboards with colleagues’ linguistic violations.

Mike O’Brien emailed a few hundred colleagues last month to announce his retirement after 32 years at Ford Motor. The sales executive’s note included the obligatory career reflections and thank yous—but came with a twist.

Attached to the email was a spreadsheet detailing a few thousand violations committed by his co-workers over the years.

During a 2019 sales meeting to discuss a new vehicle launch, a colleague blurted out: “Let’s not reinvent the ocean.”

At another meeting, in 2016, someone started a sentence with: “I don’t want to sound like a broken drum here, but…”

For more than a decade, O’Brien kept a meticulous log of mixed metaphors and malaprops uttered in Ford meetings, from companywide gatherings to side conversations. It documents 2,229 linguistic breaches, including the exact quote, context, name of the perpetrator and color commentary.

After one colleague declared: “It’s a huge task, but we’re trying to get our arms and legs around it,” O’Brien quipped: “Adding ‘legs’ into the mix makes it sound kinda ki--y.”

There is a leaderboard and a clear GOAT of verbal flubs. The list became so known—and feared—that one executive cursed O’Brien’s name in a meeting after tripping up on an expression. Violators could appeal their inclusion but success was rare. And nobody was above a grammatical roasting: Ford CEO Jim Farley twice made the list.

O’Brien scribbled the first of these violations on a whiteboard one day in his office in 2014. The 55-year-old Detroit-area native doesn’t recall the first example or why he decided to formally call it out. He’s an avid reader and crossword fan, but no English major or grammarian. A botched expression simply caught his ear one day, and he decided to record it for a laugh.

He had been working in the department that oversees consumer promotions and incentives on Ford models, such as zero-interest loans and cash-back deals. It’s a fast-paced job with long hours and deadline pressure. The Board Words, as they became known internally, were a way to inject some levity.

“We weren’t being mean,” O’Brien said. “It was just funny.”

When Covid hit and everyone had to clear out, O’Brien moved the white boards to his garage.

It took on a world of its own. Word of the Board Words spread within the company, and O’Brien would get tips from people in other divisions. Outsiders weren’t exempt—a few visiting car dealers made the list.

Eventually, O’Brien filled six whiteboards with the linguistic flubs, scrawled tightly together in a mishmash of colors. Colleagues would occasionally pop into his office and laugh at the latest. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and everyone had to clear out for lockdown, O’Brien moved the whiteboards to his garage.

The spreadsheet is the more-detailed repository of the data (not “suppository” of the data, a particularly unfortunate case of word-misuse that made the board. Twice). It breaks out the examples into categories that include:

Sports/Exercise-related:
“We’re really low on money right now…we’re dancing on thin ice,” and, “We need to keep running in our swim lanes.” Also, this mixed metaphor: “I know these are swing-for-the-moon opportunities, but I think we should pursue them.”

Body parts:
“We need to make sure dealers have some skin in the teeth;” and “It’s no skin on our back,” to which O’Brien appended that it sounded like “a horrible medical condition.”

Food-related:
“Too many cooks in the soup.” And: “Read between the tea leaves.”

Animals (the largest category, with 80 entries):
“I’m not trying to beat a dead horse to death.” Another: “We need to talk about the elephant in the closet,” one person said.

One person had three duck-related violations alone.

That distinction went to Mike Murphy, a longtime marketing manager, who holds the top spot for Board Word offenses with 184 infractions to date. He happened to hit his 100th during a Halloween party. There is a photo of him dressed as Ace Frehley from rock band Kiss, standing aside O’Brien and a banner commemorating the dubious milestone.

Murphy blames his malaprop proclivity partly on his longevity in the department and working closely with O’Brien. But he acknowledges that he talks a lot, and “I also butcher the grammar and English language at times.”

“In general, the more you get going and the more you talk, the more likely you are to find your place on the board,” he said.

O’Brien and Mike Murphy, dressed as Ace Frehley from Kiss, next to a banner commemorating Murphy’s 100th infraction.

The risk of getting flagged added to the pressure of presenting at meetings, Murphy said. “All the sudden you’ll hear a pen click, and you’re thinking, ‘What did I say that wasn’t right?’” Often, a Board Word would help defuse an intense meeting, he said.

Murphy appreciates O’Brien’s grievance process, where he allows the person to argue their case before the entry is made. Murphy rarely wins the appeal, though, like the time he blurted out: “He’s going to be so happy he’ll be like a canary in a coal mine!”

O’Brien explained that the canary in that particular idiom ends up dead. Murphy, laughing, explained that the canary was probably happy when it first got down there.

There are many repeat violators. O’Brien himself is among them with 110 Board Word offenses, ranking him No. 3 on the list. (Those were all flagged by his peers: there is a rule against self-reporting).

He concedes that not everyone was a good sport about being called out. Some of the entries were anonymized.

Recording the phonetic foibles of higher-ups presented a tricky dynamic.

Once in a meeting, Ford’s then-head of U.S. sales, Andrew Frick, was making a point about a sales promotion: “We have a better program, but the competition has more foot on the ground,” he said. Sensing the stumble, he looked up at O’Brien, laughing. “Wait, is it ‘feet on the ground’? Da---t O’Brien!”

A co-worker once admitted to O’Brien that he rarely noticed his own verbal miscues in the moment, offering an explanation that earned him another citation.

“I don’t pick up on Board Words as much,” the colleague said. “I’m not the picture of grammar.”