Off By One

Oh, god how I hate the verbal abortion that is gamer-speak. All aspects, facets, wrinkles, and sides. Every form and nuance — to the extent that nuance is a valid adjective — fills me with anger and disgust.

I would like to find the person who first moved this term from the relatively-obscure backwoods of the internet and into spoken language, and assault them with a degree of force precisely matched to the force of their assault upon what was, if not perfect, a perfectly serviceable language.

So, I just attended my first-ever keynote presentations, yesterday and this morning.  I can already see that there’s a lot of variation in delivery styles and value of content.  Yesterday had Joel Spolsky going over the importance of glitz in software development.  This is something I personally see a use for, but will admittedly be of limited use to my workplace software development, given that we develop the buried backend that makes the pretty output, not the output itself.

Today I was treated to what was, by and large, a discussion on the Apache project and differences in licensing models.  The former was a bit interesting — I didn’t know Apache had a database — but the latter was, at best, dull.  Licensing is interesting, don’t get me wrong, but I already know the basics of it, and it borders on religious for most people — they’re not going to change preferences based on a keynote.

An aside:  For the record, “LAN spigot” is the stupidest name for an RJ-45 outlet I’ve heard in ages (overheard just to my right, moments ago).

Well, the presentation I’m attending is about to start, so I should probably pay attention.  Later…

A posting on Metafilter about words used to describe the disabled provides an interesting list.

Found here, the list is composed of a mix of derogatory, clinical, and patronizing terms in an order that flat-out baffles me.

In the vein of clinical, we have numbers 1 (Retard), 7 (Cripple), 9 (Handicapped) and 10 (Wheelchair-bound). That these are found to be offensive is something that I can only understand by remembering that for the vast majority of people the truth is far more threatening that fiction.

For derogatory, we have numbers 2 (Spastic), 3 (Window-Licker (!?)), 4 (Mong), and 8 (Psycho). The negative nature of these is clearest, but apparently in the disabled community these were the best-accepted, and were generally more offensive to non-disabled voters. Kind of like the ‘nigger’ issue with blacks/whites, I imagine… A badge of pride of some kind in a divisive situation. This is weird, but I guess taking a negative label and re-working it to mean positive things is a better response than many.

Last, and worst in my books, are the patronizing ones. These shocked me in that they appeared at all. However, what didn’t shock me is that a higher proportion of the support for these words (By support, of course, I mean votes for being the worst) came from the disabled voters. Numbers 5 (Special) and 6 (Brave) anger me whenever I hear them applied. Patronizing the disabled in that fashion is analogous to affirmative action and race-based quotas in schools — it’s a subtle from of discrimination. It’s contempt that hides itself behind a veneer of respect, and it makes me ill every time I encounter it.

An interesting list, though. I recommend reading the comments and the proportions of disabled/non-disabled voters for the words. It was a nifty article.

FUD(Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) has to be one of the most irritatingly over- and inappropriately-used words in the ever-raging debate over Free Software.

Originally an acronym for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, FUD was used originally (depending, of course, on whom you ask) to describe Microsoft’s agitating about the widespread adoption of open source solutions. This is not the usage that inspires loathing in me.

In the present day, FUD is used as a catch-all term for anything that disagrees with the poster’s strongly-held views on Free Software. Usually used by rigid proponents of the FSF view — that all software should be free of restrictions, except the restriction that you’re not allowed to add restrictions. Yep, wacky. Just imagine the debates on this one — there are whole scads of licenses for software that just get stupid-picky.

So, we have an acronym that definitely served a valid purpose once upon a time. Now, though, it’s over-used and under-comprehended. It’s a mistake of the ‘net, one that we would be well served to let slip into the dustbin of history, except for the fact that there are thousands of pale, bloated, pimply-faced open source zealots out there ready to spout “That’s FUD” at the top of their whiny-ass virtual voices at the slightest sign that someone is impugning the software license that they choose to worship.

The word is FUD, and I hate reading it.