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Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 07:56:10 -0500
From: Mike Maxwell <maxwell AT umiacs DOT umd DOT edu>
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Subject: Re: Reboot vs. Restart Windows
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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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