[austechwriter] Re: Using the word 'anger' in marketing text

Stuart

The usage of 'shot fired in anger' in the military sense or when conflict 
arises means literally that and is a widely used phrase. However, the 
meaning of the word 'anger' in IT to mean a 'real' situation is a 
distortion of the common meaning of anger. This usage was either developed 
by IT people who didn't understand what anger actually meant or they were 
too clever by half and decided to bastardise the 'shot fired in anger' 
concept. As a writer it strikes me that it is very poor language usage to 
try to make a common word mean something else. Only those in the know (IT 
boffins) are familiar with it in this bastardised use. This in turn means 
the word fails in this use because it leads to confusion when read by a 
wider audience. The comments on the list clearly demonstrate the confusion. 

Sheryl
-----Original Message-----
From:   Stuart Burnfield [SMTP:sburnf@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent:   Tuesday, 29 April 2003 5:32 PM
To:     austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:        [austechwriter] Re: Using the word 'anger' in marketing text






It's not just an IT expression. Googling for "shot fired in anger" returns
several hundred examples. My guess is that it started out as a military
expression --

"They surrendered without a shot being fired in anger"
"The fort was scrapped without a shot ever being fired in anger"

-- and eventually escaped to the wider world.

 ---
Stuart Burnfield

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