Mail Archives: cygwin/2006/10/30/07:56:17
Sigh. I wasn't going to do this. But his flaming is so egregious...
Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> Mike Maxwell wrote:
>> Most of us don't look in the dictionary to find out what computer
>> terms--or any other words--mean. I would guesstimate that you learned
>> 99% of your vocabulary, computer or otherwise, without looking it up.
>> So by that count, 99% of the words we know are our own arbitrary
>> definitions, made up by observing how words are used, or occasionally
>> by having someone tell you what a word means (and they probably
>> learned it the same way).
> Let me get this straight, just because you're too lazy or perhaps proud
> to look up a word that you don't know the meaning to we should change
> terminology to fit your needs?!? Then you "guessitmate" (AKA pull a
> number out of your ass) that 99% of the population is as lazy or stupid.
That's not what I said, go back and re-read. Wait, I'll save you the
trouble: I said that 99% of the words we know--not 99% of the people who
know words--are our definitions that we infer from usage, rather than
from looking them up.
The second thing that shows me that you can't read, is that I also did
not suggest changing terminology. I suggested changing a message. And
the change is away from a non-standard usage (in the Windows world) to a
standard usage ("restart Windows").
As for my guesstimate, I am a linguist, and it is standard knowledge
among linguists that most of the vocabulary we use (in our first
language--second language learning is often different) is not from
looking definitions up in dictionaries.
> Said people are using computers and most likely the net too. Is it
> really too much trouble for you to do a google search or say search out
> on answers.com or wikipedia?!?
Yes. To put it bluntly: I (as a native speaker of English) should not
need to look up _any_ vocabulary in an error message, nor in any other
message my computer gives me, with the exception of narrow technical
domains--like, say, math terms. I would expect to need to look up words
in a program like Mathemetica. But when that does happen, I would also
expect the program to have a hyperlink to its internal definition (or
possibly to a definition out on the web).
> Do you similarly campaign to have
> electricians or auto mechanics to change their terminology?!? This is
> the field of computers (used to be called computer science). You're
> welcome to come into our world but like any profession you gotta learn
> the jargon....
Again, I am not suggesting changing the terminology of any profession.
I am suggesting that it would be good for the CygWin message to use the
standard vocabulary of the Windows world, since it is running under
Windows. (To everyone else out there, I am not blaming the CygWin
programmers; this is a minor point of clarifying a message, not a
complaint. I just can't figure out why Andrew is so bent out of shape
about it...)
>> Besides, times change, but usage changes more slowly. When I was in
>> the Navy, the term for starting up any piece of equipment, be it a
>> boiler or a computer, was "fire it up."
> I'm willing to bet that that terminology was never allowed on a submarine!
I have no idea. Your point??
> I see no clearer benefit to using restart as opposed to reboot. Indeed
> reboot is a commonly accepted notion by most people in the business and
> now a days, most people not in the business but using computers themselves.
Certainly 'reboot' is used a lot. But the standard Ms Windows message
is 'restart Windows.' And I don't know the history, but I would not be
surprised if the reason it started being used (around the time of Win95
or Win98, from what I can tell) is that it is less ambiguous--exactly
the point I've been trying to make.
--
Mike Maxwell
maxwell AT umiacs DOT umd DOT edu
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