Another one: in US ice hockey circles, particularly NHL, they used to have a save percentage for goalies. Since a couple decades ago, they started using a ratio for it, because it was more practicable to have three digits that way. But people still keep talking about save "percentage", not ratio. (NHL keeps using the shorthand "sv%" for it, always below 1%, so there you go.)

Not all is going to hell but really. Percentage vs ratio must be clear.

I'd like to see other examples where you'd welcome correctness over what happened and you can't help it but would like to see it.

"Suppressors" over legalese "Silencers" and the like. Centrifugal chargers over just all superchargers if they're not turbo but belt driven, that sort of thing.

"Example" versus "instance", for instance?
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

tommy9999,

GNU Linux is Free Software. Free Software typically is not public domain, it is copyrighted, probably by some version of the GNU "copyleft". The language of the GNU "copyleft" emphasises all sorts of rights you have to use the software, but it does restrict what you can do with it. Typically, you cannot use it to create closed, commercial software.

Open Source means that you can see the source code. The software is still subject to a copyright of some sort, likely a commercial one.

Public domain means that there is no copyright control over the media. I understand that Mickey Mouse is now public domain.

--
JHG

Open source is not Public Domain...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

The only thing that really gets to me is "5 times less than..." when they really mean is "1/5th as much as."

I have to chuckle over "insight a riot," though.

My glass has a v/c ratio of 0.5

Maybe the tyranny of Murphy is the penalty for hubris. - http://xkcd.com/319/

Quote:

"5 times less than..." when they really mean is "1/5th as much as."

I have no quarrel with either, but we don't force people to say, "5 times as much as" instead of "5 times more than"; given the latter, it's symmetrical with "5 times less than"

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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Keeping with the NHL-themed comment: power play (PP%) and penalty kill (PK%) "percentages".

Transiting to other usages:
1) the appearance of the word "like" in verbal communication where it is obviously just a placeholder.
2) the appearance of emojis and other symbolic short forms (UR anyone? instead of "you are"?) instead of actual correct language ... for this, I blame Toys 'R' Us.
3) the concept of a "sound bite". If something is being taken out of context, then it is open to interpretation. Can't be taken as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me ...

Converting energy to motion for more than half a century

Gr8blu?

"Ensure" vs "insure"

It seems like people are always trying to "insure" that something is taken care or, doesn't occur, is addressed, etc

drawoh,

what Open Source means is that the source code is *virally* open. Meaning, all derivative work must have its source code made available too. That's way more than just "you can see the source code". Open Source licensing is all about any and all derivative work in the future.

(I've read that Richard Stallman's original peeve was with a printer driver. A perfectly good piece of hardware was rendered useless for a lack of driver... and so it begun.)

My pet peeve was about using "open source" for (public domain) documentation, not computer software. Reports, studies, newspaper articles, that sort of everyday thing. These software related distinctions (virally open vs closed, source code vs object code) just make no sense whatsoever there. "Public domain" is what we're talking about there.

dik,

Indeed! PD software doesn't impose any viral obligations on what you do with it. You can build on the source code or just use the object code as you please. But that wasn't my point; I was talking about taking the phrase "open oource" where it doesn't belong, outside the world of software. Perhaps I wasn't clear.

As pertains to printed works, there are likewise complications

open source is somewhat equivalent to copyrighted publications
public domain is equivalent to public domain - copyright expired

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

With this topic in mind, Lake Superior State University, located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, has released it's annual list of 'Banished Words':

Banished Words 2024: for Misuse, Overuse and Uselessness

https://www.lssu.edu/traditions/banishedwords/

And here's this years list of the 10 words which they're advocating being banned from our lexicon:

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

At the end of the day, they banned "at the end of the day" more than once, so their Force, weak it is...

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

I hesitate slightly to raise this here, but I find myself a trifle peeved by the increasing use of "preaching to the choir" to convey a sense already adequately served by "preaching to the converted". This usage debases an expression much better suited to describing:

A futile attempt to distract the lay clerk from his catching up on the test score during the musical lull that follows the anthem.

or

A trite little homily on the trinitarian symbolism of the 8/5 trine; how late XIII century scholars considered that to be the perfect chord - and how much more perfect it would be if the outer parts could listen to one another and then maybe do something about the bloody tuning.

Thank you so much.

A.

Quote (JohnRBaker)

it's annual list

Quote:

the increasing use of "preaching to the choir" to convey a sense already adequately served by "preaching to the converted".

I've never actually heard the latter used in 62 years of living in the US. However, I think the former is actually a better phrase, since "choir" is a much more commonly heard and used term and immediately brings up a vivid image of what the phrase means, while the latter word with "converted" does not, since "converted" seems to be a less common word.

Nevertheless, I think most of these are nits and are part of how a language evolves and changes over time; if the language police had their way, we might all still be speaking using "thee" and "thou" etc. The French actually do have a language police, and they have yet to snuff out "hamburger" and "le hamburger" shows up as the default translation.

At least in Romance Languages, the words are manageable, compared to spoken Chinese, where "electric brain" is the closest you can get to "computer" and "hand machine" is the closest you can get to "cellphone". Oddly, technical literature is often understandable without translation, since almost all of the technical terms are a bunch of English terms smashed into a sea of Chinese words

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

If you're interested in how the English language evolved and how it ended-up the way it is, I can highly recommend the book 'The Mother Tongue: English And How It Got That Way', by Bill Bryson.

https://www.abebooks.com/9780380715435/Mother-Tong...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

I'm generally not bothered by the use/misuse of words or common slang so long as the meaning is easily understood by others.
I do have a few pet peeves related to the application of language:
1. Nitpicking/correcting others' words in an attempt to make yourself feel/look better.
2. Using trendy new slang at work. If the slang is trendy or new then odds are great that you're going to confuse most around you. If the slang is a generation older than you then its fairly safe to assume it'll be understood.

One thing that drives me crazy is why engineers decided to mess around with slope. In math, you learned that slope is rise over run (vertical / horizontal). But when engineers talk about the slope of a landfill it's the opposite (i.e., run over rise (horizontal / vertical)), so a 3:1 slope is 3 foot horizontal to 1 foot rise (or drop).

Quote:

engineers decided to mess around with slope

Only SOME engineers do that. I think you guys are also the ones that came up with "percent grade" instead of slope on roads, as if that's anymore meaningful than "slope"

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

Yes, 'percent grade' always seemed strange to me because I'm guessing that the vast majority of people out there have absolutely no idea what that means, only that the larger the number, the steeper the grade. But then, perhaps that's all that it needs to mean to the average driver going down the road.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

Quote (tommy9999)

I'd like to see other examples where you'd welcome correctness over what happened and you can't help it but would like to see it.

Leo Fender swapped the musical terms "tremolo" and "vibrato" on the electric guitars and amplifiers that bear his name. Admittedly a very minor issue, but still annoying to anyone who knows that technically correct is the best kind of correct.

Speaking of pet peeves, it seems Microsoft has changed the default font used in its office applications, like Word and Excel, from Calibri to Aptos. Now the differences are very subtle, almost to the point of probably being missed by most people, but that hasn't stopped the ranting on the web or attempts at having some fun with it:

‘I’m feeling gaslit by my own computer’: Why a small change by Microsoft was a big jolt for some users

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/22/us/microsoft-defaul...

Disclaimer: Personally I couldn't care less as I've always used Helvetica as my default font on most all of my office applications. Now I can get away with using Helvetica as it comes standard on Mac's. Now it's been years (eight to be exact) since I had to use a PC and the Helvetica font was not available unless you paid extra for it since it's a proprietary font owned by the old Linotype company (now doing business as Monotype GmbH). However, Apple cut a deal years ago to include Helvetica on all Apple products, and since Apple computers were used so extensively by commercial artists, this contributed to Helvetica being one of the most widely used fonts in the advertising and publishing worlds, despite that fact that it's still generally not available on PC's. If anyone is interested in the history of fonts (AKA Typefaces) I can highly recommend the aptly name documentary 'Helvetica', by Gary Hustwit ('Helvetica' in one of his very highly acclaimed trilogy of documentaries that he directed from 2007 to 2011):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_(film)

And speaking of Linotype machines, any engineer, particularly mechanical engineers, will find 'Linotype: The Film' very interesting (I know I did):

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2130114/

Now getting back to this Calibri versus Aptos controversy, here's an example of the two fonts, along with Helvetica, as a comparison:



In many respects, Aptos looks more like Helvetica if you look close, particularly at some of the symbols as well as letters like lowercase 'a' and 's'. However, one of the specific issues which motivated the switch to Aptos was that most all the popular fonts, particularly the sans serif fonts, was that it was impossible to tell the difference between a lowercase 'l' and an uppercase 'I'. The Aptos font (if you check the examples fonts above) addresses that.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

I've always been partial to Arial myself, partly because it clearly differentiates between numeral one and lowercase ell (1 l) and it seems to be widely available (not that I have ever used or will ever use a product from the rotten fruit company). I've always maintained that there is no need for more than about a dozen fonts and anyone proposing another misbegotten font should be summarily shot.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

Yes, it's like the book I'm currently reading, 'Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge from Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic', by Simon Winchester. At the end of the book, just before the author's bio, he spends an entire page praising the use of a fairly new typeface (font) which was used to print the book, 'Filosofia', a font that I've never heard of before (and which is not installed on my Mac which has hundreds of fonts). Now it's NOT a sans-serif font and as far as I'm concerned, it's a horrible font, but I might be feeling that way because the typeface for this book is very small, making it almost impossible to read (it's just that the book came highly recommended by a person I have a lot of respect for and so far it's been very informative and well written, despite the author's hang-up about the questionable use of this 'Filosofia' font). I suspect that the use of the small and compact font, was to keep the length of the book to a manageable number of pages (it's already 383 pages plus another 30+ for the glossary and index). Note that this is the first time I've read anything by this author (this appears to be his 35th book), so I can't say whether this is normal for one of his books.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without