Change PC to Win or Windows

[Derek Martin]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 02:47:31PM -0700, Lie wrote:
> Common usage isn't always correct. 

Actually it is, inherently...  When usage becomes common, the language
becomes redefined, and its correctness is therefore true by identity
(to borrow a mathematical term).  The scholars complain for a while,
but eventually capitulate, and re-write the dictionary.  Language
bends to its use by the people, not the other way around.  Your
assumption is the opposite, and therefore all of your argument is
false.

> For example, a physicist would not use weight when he meant mass. 
> much, but in technical environment doing so would embarrass him. In
> this analogy, I consider download page for a software source code to
> be a technical area.

Your analogy is still broken.  The term "PC" has been used BY
TECHNCIAL PEOPLE, IN A TECHNICAL CONTEXT, to mean Microsoft on Intel,
FOR DECADES.

 + Authors of technical books, manuals, and other forms of
   documentation have refered to them as PCs... for decades.

 + Educators in CS and EE at major universities have refer to them as
   PCs, since at least as early as 1988 (when I started college).

 + Industry news publications such as Computer World have refered to
   them as PCs, for decades.

 + There are even whole magazines dedicated to them! (PC Magazine, PC
   Shopper, PC World, PC Gamer, etc.)  They are dedicated to Microsoft
   on Intel, and have existed (at least in some cases) long before
   Apple started talking about PCs in their ads.

All of this has been going on, essentially since there has been such
a thing as the IBM PC.  I'm sorry, but you sir, are quite simply,
plainly, and completely, wrong.  With a catastrophic amount of
written documentation, written by technical people in the computer
industry over the last 20+ years, to prove it.

> > > Apple popularizes the term by explicit marketing,
> >
> > And here is the last point you are missing: Apple does no such
> > thing.
> 
> They did, by using the term PC to refer to other computers. 

APPLE CAN NOT POPULARIZE A TERM WHICH IS ALREADY POPULAR.  

> This kind of advertising Apple (the computer company) used is
> misleading, since it implied that their PC is not a PC.

They haven't implied anything; they're stating it outright!  Apple
sells personal computers, but they do not sell PCs.  Apple's personal
computer is NOT a PC, and never was, and never will be.  It's an
Apple.

-- 
Derek D. Martin
http://www.pizzashack.org/
GPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D

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