The Joly G-man wrote:
The BBC are responsible in the main (AFAIK) for enforcing "incorrect"
terminology as follows:
1) "forward slash" - a term used by Naomi Troski on the Big Byte, circa
1994.
Since Ms Troski speaks fluent 'Strine, we assume that the term "oblique
stroke" was not in her vocabulary. Presenters including the late John
Peel used the correct term. I don't think the term "solidus" was much in
use.
Well, it's always been 'slash' in the computing circles I've been
wobbling around in since about 1980; to me, 'oblique stroke' sounds
more like a cerebrovascular accident occasioned by maintaining one's
head at an overly-jaunty angle.
My objection would be to the 'forward' part, but I guess a non-trivial
number of people still get 'backslash' wrong (due, no doubt, to the
bone-headed adoption of '\' as the DOS path separator by Microsoft,
as a result of being frivolously different from Unix, as far as I know).
(Nowhere near as egregious as referring to '#' as 'pound', though.)
2) "logon to our website" - the actual meaning in most cases is "browse
our website".
Or "send us an e-mail at www.bbc.co.uk/not-an-email-address".
Still, we've come a long way to be quibbling with the BBC's
use of terminology about something that's so taken for granted now.
It was only a few years ago that Janet Street-Porter ruined my
perfectly good irony meter when she wasted 30 minutes of precious
TV airtime whining about how the Internet was only of interest
to Sad People, and how we should all get out more, instead of
being stuck in front of screens the whole time. I suspect that
the programme in question, "J'accuse...", could only be shown
today as an object lesson in how to be totally clueless
in public about the future of your own field.
Now, who wants to start a sweepstake about which year we'll
all be saying 'softwares' without flinching, the way we no
longer flinch about saying 'emails'?
--
Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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