Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5709 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian
| Message 9 of 15 24 June 2009 at 10:56pm | IP Logged |
Meinst Du hier nicht dass sich ein Problem zuspitzt?
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alexraasch Diglot Groupie Germany alexraasch.de Joined 6457 days ago 52 posts - 52 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Mandarin
| Message 10 of 15 26 June 2009 at 9:21pm | IP Logged |
No that's not what I mean. I mean that a problem needs to be dealt with at a higher level of responsibility, for example a claim that exceeds a certain value.
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cezah Newbie Belgium Joined 5889 days ago 19 posts - 21 votes Studies: French, Italian
| Message 11 of 15 07 July 2009 at 3:22pm | IP Logged |
Yes Cainntear is absolutely right escalating a problem in business English means to report the problem upwards. It could be confusing since it doesnt seem like 'escalation' in its original sense of the problem getting worse. But it makes perfect sense when you realise that the reason for escalation is precisely to make it known as a worse problem by escalating it, if you follow.
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Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin
| Message 12 of 15 12 July 2009 at 10:42am | IP Logged |
One term I have often come across in recent years for escalating a problem to the next management level is to "bump up" the problem: "I can't solve this, so I will bump it up to my boss".
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Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh
| Message 13 of 15 12 July 2009 at 7:05pm | IP Logged |
"Escalating" makes perfect sense if you think about passing it "up" the chain of command.
We talk about the "career ladder", after all, and height is part of our notion of hierarchies. It's going to someone; it's climbing; it's escalating.
It's actually the use of "escalation" as "getting worse" which is a neologism, coined by spin-merchants and regurgitated by the press as a way of making war seem less urgent: "hostilities are escalating" ie "increasing in level" rather than "getting worse".
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ofdw Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5855 days ago 39 posts - 47 votes Speaks: English*, Italian
| Message 14 of 15 13 July 2009 at 11:40pm | IP Logged |
I first heard "escalate" to mean "take the problem to a superior" when I had a complaint with some company or other a few years ago, and the guy at the call centre said my complaint was going to be "escalated" because it had remained unresolved for over a certain period of time.
I remember thinking "What?!", but I see the sense of the derivation (climbing up the ladder).
So I suppose it has maybe been used in business circles for a while and is gradually seeping into the public domain.
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Aeroflot Senior Member United States Joined 5602 days ago 102 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 15 of 15 24 July 2009 at 11:19pm | IP Logged |
You could probably just use "pass it on to my boss" or "forward it to my boss."
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