OH! LANGUAGE

 OH! LANGUAGE

With the advent of Computer as a major DEVICE to handle a variety of ‘Socio-economic’ operations, some degree of conflict is felt between traditional usage of words in English and the same words implying something else, not known to the traditional user.

Also, there is a perceptible ‘poverty’ in expressions, especially among the computer-trained personnel as against the old timers who have had an impeccable training in ‘handling’ of English as a medium of communication. The latter revel in the prescribed purity of terms while the former are both casual and causal about slipshod usages. Computer –literacy / proficiency seems to confer on those youth a sense of supremacy- more as an ego-inflating tool than defusing such notions. Right from the term ‘LANGUAGE,’ a semantic confusion pervades the minds of both categories of personnel of the old world and those of the new world. The ‘new world’ is a reference to computer-dominated world order while the ‘old world’ is a passive reference to the earlier mode of life punctuated by human effort in all day-to-day transactions.  

LANGUAGE

When a traditional term like ‘language’ is used it refers to a specific structured presentation of details in grammatically organized and paraphrased statement. If someone says I know 4 languages, it amounts to his / her being familiar with different formats of presentation typical to 4 different tongues or  Languages. These languages need not be related to one another.

If a computer-trained person claims to know 4 languages, it merely implies his/her familiarity of employing different modes of ‘feeding’ data for programming computer[s].

ROAMING

Traditional English refers to the act of ‘moving around’ without any defined purpose. As such it is a somewhat unpleasant activity of aimlessly moving around.

But in computer-based systems like cell phones, Roaming means being away from  a normal place [town or City or country] where the phone is generally operated from. 

BOOT

Basic English term ‘boot’ is noun referring to ‘The shoe WHICH COVERS THE FOOT AND THE LEG UP TO THE KNEE.    As a verb ‘boot’ refers to the act of kicking. In colloquial use, ‘got the boot’ means ‘kicked out’ of the job.

Boot in computer application refers to the system being ready to take inputs for work. Fails to BOOT implies system fails to open up.

DEFAULT

Default in traditional English is an aberration or failure to abide by prescribed norm. [S]He is a defaulter means [s]he is a habitual wrong-doer or does not follow the general practice.

In computer terminology, ‘By Default’ suggests that ‘automatically’ it happens. The monitor goes blank by default, if the system is not used for more than a few minutes.

Ironically, members of the old world and those of the new world do not subscribe the opinion of the other group and merely rate each other as ill informed personnel. The computer skilled person can rapidly execute work on a computer except that of ‘Drafting’ a decent communication to some other agency and invariably leans heavily on the ‘old world'  person to carve out a powerful draft.

Necessarily the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ have to co-exist and be mutually inclusive and can never be mutually inclusive.

Prof. K. Raman