abuse of terminology was Re: [geeks] Booze and Religion and DIETS

[Dave McGuire]

On March 10, Kurt Huhn wrote:
> > Diets are like lame PC overclockers fooling around inside Sparc 20's
> > trying to make them run Windows.  They pull a wire here break a
> > connector there and in the end nothing works right, but they can stick a
> > Windows logo on the outside of the box.  I still think a quote from Dr.
> > McCoy in ST IV is appropriate here..."What is this the dark ages?"
> 
> What?  Not sure I follow your line of reasoning...
> 
> The word "diet" has certainly been bastardized by modern culture. 
> "Diet" is a term that should mean "what this person eats on a normal
> daily basis, as a point of living".  Instead it seems to mean "what this
> person has decided to try this week in order to lose weight".  

  This is one of my biggest pet peeves.

  I was putting a SkyCache dish antenna up in my backyard in Maryland
about four years ago, and a neighbor walked by and said "hey, you got
a satellite!"  I responded with "no, General Electric has the
satellite, I just catch the RF with this antenna."  He walked away
very confused, and probably thought I was nuts.

  Then there are the "verticals" hanging against the sliding glass door
at my mom's place.  They're vertical BLINDS, dammit, if people REALLY
need to shorten that term, they should at least call them BLINDS.

  Common language is littered with shit like this, and it really
grinds on my nerves for some reason.  Non-US people: Does this stuff
happen in your circles as badly as it happens here?

       -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL         "Less talk.  More synthohol." --Lt. Worf