atw: Re: Clone vs Clone

Hi Brian:
On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 11:21:21 +1000,  you wrote:
> Hi Peter,
>
> I'm all for colourful language - in the appropriate place. And
> I do prefer to understand the historical roots of words.
>
> But when instructing people about computer operations, I still
> thinks it's better to keep the language simple - single
> cylinder words, if possible. Once one starts Germanification,
> to which our lords and masters of the grub shrub variety seem
> so inextricably wedded, then a whole new lexicon needs to be
> printed. Crikey, it's only a bluddy computer - mostly
> monolithically rule-bound and totally non-interactive - so why
> try to pretty it up with anthropomorphic concepts - even
> metaphors - its designers will never even dream about?


For the same reason geneticists refer to a "bacterial lawn"  or a 
DNA "strand" or use a word symbol for a Greek twig as a way to refer to 
a most complex process of biological replication...    

And of course, geneticists have already required a whole new
lexicon to be printed.

As did electronic engineers before and after them.
As did automotive engineers before them.
As did
...... etc etc    
..... and tool makers in stone and bronze before them...
.... and the growers of grain.

Pause and consider why people might fall into this behaviour in
every known field..       (Or name a field where it has never applied.)      

It's because the borrowing of the word or phrase or "conceit" actually
assists understanding, by applying a concept already known to one
little known or understood.   If then the borrowed phrase is qualified
(as in "bacterial", "DNA" etc)  then it's clear there is a distinction made 
which
needs to be taken into account, if it is not already evident from the
context.    As in "disk clone".     

As I suggested, no-one is really going to think that those disks went
away into a dark corner and wrapped helical things around each other's
helical things...     

Other notes:

A twig or cutting is not an "anthro..". anything, be it "morphic" or otherwise..

Germanification already yet ?    That's an interesting Latination, I aver,
(Note that my verb to the sentence end in deference I moved.) 

And BTW, speaking of anthromorphism, I don't think the computer itself will 
actually mind having
things "prettied up", but some of their designers have indeed thought of, and 
started to implement,
elements of self-repair...    Can replication be so far away ?  

Even as far back as Turing in the '50s there's been an interest in 
"morphogenesis". 

-Peter M
  



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