Americanisms

4291 said:
I wasn't going to mention it, but as you have asked, there have been a few slips.

Unecessary; occurence; similie; anericanisms. ;)
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Hopefully not with programme though!
I'm not going to count anything I tried to type on my 'phone either : )
 
Many years ago I had occaision to look over an American originated paper that a colleague had annotated in the margin. One annotation where the writer had used the word 'gotten', and in the margin he wrote 'shortened form of got' ...
 
LOL!

This is probably common knowledge, but one must be careful with criticism of words such as "gotten" - American and English come from a common ancestor - the Middle English that was taken across by the Pilgrim Fathers. It could be said that (in some cases) it is English that has lost its way.
 
I hate methodology instead of method(s). Is methodology the philosophical study of the use of methods?

Use case instead of usage is another one.

Also App instead of application or program(me), and folder instead of directory.

Then there is retina display instead of marketing ploy, but don't get me started...
 
Black Hole said:
LOL!

This is probably common knowledge, but one must be careful with criticism of words such as "gotten" - American and English come from a common ancestor - the Middle English that was taken across by the Pilgrim Fathers. It could be said that (in some cases) it is English that has lost its way.
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I hope you aren't implying that US English developed from a small colony of religious intolerants founded in 1620? Not only were they not the first British colonizers, but a whole load of other foreign influences contributed to US English.

I agree, though, that British English is now minor compared with International English.
 
I think methodology goes deeper than method, and as such I have room for it (in proper context). However, there are many examples of creeping exaggeration: technology, system, engineer, industry (how can call centres be a "service industry"?)...
 
Methodology isn't an IT-specific word; use-case cartainly is (coming from the CASE statement in some programming languages).

My (personal) definition of methodology: the systematic application of stated guiding principles to produce methods for use in any specific set of circumstances, ie a method for defining methods.

My complaint about creeping inflation in the use of these terms (including methodology, system, etc) is typical on TV adverts: a washing powder is described as a "clothes cleaning system" (comprising multiple diverse identifiable elements which together produce a result greater than their sum? I don't think so!).

Usage creeps in a living language, we know that, but of the definition of (say) system gets watered down, what do we use when we really do mean system?
 
I can accept BH's definition of methodology as fair but not applicable to the way the word was actually used in the IT businesses I worked with. Essentially each company's "methodology" was in fact a set method for developing a system with defined steps to be carried out in a prescribed order and a prescribed manner. This was supposedly to deliver a system but in practice seemed mainly to ensure that when the system was delivered late, over budget and under spec there was good evidence to demonstrate it was no one's fault.

The grossest case of linguistic inflation I can remember was a "methodology consultant" using the term weltanschauung ( which he could not even pronounce ) when all he meant was context. Any other good Germanisms anyone?
 
Since it's the arms, only this morning a German colleague complained that he had Frühjahrsmüdigkeit, which led me onto the discovery of "Spring Fever" - a contranym in English would you believe?
 
af123 said:
Since it's the arms, only this morning a German colleague complained that he had Frühjahrsmüdigkeit, which led me onto the discovery of "Spring Fever" - a contranym in English would you believe?
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The best bit of The 'Arms for me is the way threads such as this spread laterally as they move forward, grow and educate. ( Eg. Accretion and contranym have been added to the list of words currently swimming at the front of my brain!)

Taking the time to look up odd words certainly increases knowledge, even if those words are not in common use. Recently, playing 'Bananagrams', two words of the day turned up- excoriate and turpitude, the latter just rolls around the tongue!

So different from other forums where comments or replies are poorly constructed, misspelt, lack or misuse punctuation and use words incorrectly.

Common errors such as loose for lose, misuse of their and there and a new one that popped up recently - I'am, subsequently copied by others in the same thread surprisingly annoy me.
 
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