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
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html
Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
