The other point I was passive-aggressively hoping to make by grammar nitpicking is that maybe we can do without a one-word slur meaning that, since its primary purpose is for one side in a negotiation to call the other side a bunch of big fat pussies in an attempt to shame them into weakening their demands.
I imagine we don't have one word that means "having a spurious sense of entitlement" because up until recently (the last one or two hundred years) it was generally crystal clear whether your station allowed you to demand something of someone else or not, so that you'd simply throw someone's station in their face instead of trying to make a sense of entitlement into a character flaw.
Oh, totally picked up on the other point. By pointedly ignoring it, I hinting that my original comment was purposefully made to be more polemic than rational argument, in case the "fuck these people" didn't give it away, and focus on linguistic nerddom which is more interesting anyway =)
I don't see it so much as a negotiating tool, though. Analyzing it, I'd say it's more an attempt to raise the relative status of the HN tribe by putting down the status of middle managers than anything else.
I imagine we don't have one word that means "having a spurious sense of entitlement" because up until recently (the last one or two hundred years) it was generally crystal clear whether your station allowed you to demand something of someone else or not, so that you'd simply throw someone's station in their face instead of trying to make a sense of entitlement into a character flaw.