good English

One may Google for something and/or Google someone, i.e. look for it/them on the web using a popular search-engine.

The other day I was upbraided by a colleague for using as a verb. I was explaining (as his eyelids drooped) a web-based system which we use in our work. I said that, the second time you log in, the system will probably have cookied your computer so that you won’t need to enter all your details again.

I note that, whereas MSN is the abbreviation for a range of Microsoft online services, it is now sometimes used to refer only to the instant-messaging system which is but one of those services. One may MSN someone, as one may message them. I feel tempted to say that one may messenge someone since at least one of those services is called a messenger (rather than a messager).

Webcam has meant a camera whose output appears continuously on a webpage, perhaps like live TV or perhaps in the form of a picture taken every few seconds or minutes which replaces its predecessor. It can now be used to refer to the use of a computer-connected camera as part of an online dialogue (such as an MSN session or a Skype phone call). The camera is, thus, called a webcam but is not on the web.

Internet is often used to mean the same as the worldwide web. The techies will tell you that the web is just part of the net, other components including email, messaging and file-transfer.

For many years now the IT community have tried to maintain a distinction between memory and storage. The former disappears when you switch off the machine while the latter persists. No wonder people confuse the two since, when you switch on your computer in the morning, you expect it to remember the work you did the day before in the shape of the files you saved. What’s needed is a term (and accompanying swearword) for when you’ve written eight pages of text without saving it to disk and someone in the street puts a pneumatic drill through a main power-cable outside your house.

Refresh used to be about attaining that nice, awake feeling you get after a cold shower or a strong cup of tea. Now it also means requesting a new version of a webpage. The user can do this and/or the website may determine that new versions of pages will be sent to users. Such auto-refreshing is used on pages which tell you how late your train is running. Understanding refreshing (as opposed to refreshment) is important for web-users because many assume that, when they look at a webpage, they are seeing a live picture as they would if they were watching television. They are actually seeing a copy of the page in the form that it was when they requested it, which could have been some time before; unless it’s refreshed, that is.

Computer-folks make an arcane distinction between key and button. The former is physical and on a keyboard. The latter is a representation of a physical key but on a screen.

The phrasal verb mouse-over involves one’s moving one’s on-screen pointer over something on the screen, in many cases a graphic which changes when you do that. This is an interesting use of mouse (the physical pointing-device) to mean pointer (the virtual thing on the screen). Some computers have neither mouses nor mice, but you can still move the pointer on the screen and, thus, mouse-over without a mouse.

My newest acquisition is “cloud” to mean the three-dimensional area in which one may receive wireless internet, thus a wifi cloud. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could see them and they were different colours like pink and baby-blue? Better still, if you could sit on them after a busy day’s work.

Supervision report to Dr Max Wheeler, L&EL, from Paul Danon, research student

We met today (14 November 2006) in your office from 16:00 till 17:15. This was my first supervision since I began the best part of two years’ intermission. Let me take this opportunity to say how pleased I am to be back at Sussex and, particularly, in L&EL.

I presented at yesterday’s Research on Languages and Linguistics Seminar and the audience was very gracious and appreciative. I got two pieces of fan-mail! Ms Carol O’Neal wrote: “Many congratulations on your excellent and most entertaining seminar.” Mr Nicholas Padmore wrote: “I attended your fantastic presentation for ROLLS yesterday evening, and wanted first to congratulate you for that.” Sorry to blow my own trumpet but, as I understand it, part of this undertaking is to win the confidence of research-based colleagues.

I spoke at the meeting about work done to date and, whereas I previously presented to colleagues about my review of paper-based style-guides, this time I also included material about software which offers to improve style. Although this review-work has been useful, my confidence has not been inspired by either printed or computer-based guides. Evidence of these tools’ effectiveness is sparse. Their precepts could well be valid but, for me at least, empirical proof of such validity is needed before I publish to that effect.

Interesting input from yesterday’s meeting included the observation that the ethos of at least some of the books on style came from a can-do attitude to writing which is found in the USA. Whereas in other cultures the ability to write well may be regarded as innate, in America it is seen as a skill to be acquired. First-year American undergraduates are taught to present their ideas in writing and Dr Murphy testified to the usefulness of that. Dr Murphy suggested I contacted Dr Allison (sic) Smith of Middle Tennessee State University.

My initial wish at today’s supervision was to get down straight away to practical research, testing the style-guides’ and styleware’s prescriptions by using real language with real people. We discussed the formulation by me of a research-outline or –protocol.

However, psychology-literature includes results of tests on comprehension. Inasfar as my new approach is to look for the so-to-speak laws of nature about English style, such work should be examined. Imagine that researchers had established that active verbs really did communicate better than passives. Such a fact could join the list of real-life laws about how language worked when it worked well.

My next lines of enquiry should therefore be:

• PsycINFO
• Modern Language Association
• Google Scholar.

My keyword will be comprehension and I shall particularly look out for review-articles which sum up the state of the art on an aspect of the subject.

I shall ask Sussex faculty (including informatics personnel and/or Professor Sampson and/or Dr Bill Keller) about what rules, if any, in natural language processing apply to style. I shall also ask the companies which produce the style-software about the rules they incorporate into that software, including what those rules are and how they are identified as being valid. Also of interest will be reviews of style-software.

Today we also spoke about problems with telling writers to enforce a rule which preferred English words of Germanic origin, since many would not know about many words’ origins. We mentioned how morpheme-frequency might determine readers’ familiarity and, consequently, understandability.

Please may I report on progress in a couple of weeks’ time and might we then decide if another face-to-face meeting is desirable this term, or if we can continue to communicate by email and/or phone? Daytime telephone appointments may be feasible for me.