They'd used the word "crunch", and also were talking about "marathon, not sprint".
I explained that they really shouldn't use the C-word unless they were ready to deal with the consequences--especially with folks from the gamedev industry or startup stuff, there is a lot of psychic baggage with that.
~
If you tell me that we're doing a crunch, I take that to mean that the product deadline is paramount--bugs that can't be papered over a distant second, and everything else is not worth thinking about. Crunch means that I work whatever schedule lets my team write the most code fastest, and that we are released from any obligation other than "make this date". If that means working until four or five in the morning, and then stumbling in around noon, and telling a veep to fuck off and get out of the way, that's what it is.
The c-word is something that has cost people their marriages, has cost companies millions in technical debt, and has cost our industry a lot in untrackables--it's the nuclear option.
~
They thanked me for my explanation, and promised not to use the c-word again unless they really, really meant it.