List of Functions

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Rustom Mody <rustompmody at gmail.com>:

> And my mum made the strange remark: "You guys use all the words that I
> know. And you make them into sentences that have no meaning at all."

That's what I think when I hear Estonian spoken.

> My own finding is that repurposing old words to new concepts causes
> more confusion and misunderstanding than understanding and 'progress'

I disagree. I think it's absolutely great that we have "charm quarks"
after centuries of "electrostatic equilibria".

Finnish has a long tradition of translating fancy words into proper
Finnish, and that has contributed to more informed democratic debate on,
say, nuclear energy. We have:

   suunnikas for parallelogram
   puolisuunnikas for trapezoid
   suorakaide for rectangle
   suhde for ratio
   muuttuja for variable

   mahahaava for peptic ulcer
   sydänkohtaus for myocardial infarction
   selkäydin for spinal cord
   immuunikato for AIDS

   rattijuoppous for DUI
   ensiapu for CPR

   ydinvoima for nuclear power
   sähkö for electricity
   happi for oxygen
   häkä for carbon monoxide
   vetovoima for attraction
   kiihtyvyys for acceleration

   tietorakenne for data structure
   viite for reference

   etc etc


Here's a funny, somewhat related story. I was wondering about the
etymology of the word "glamour." I thought it must be some old borrowing
from French.

In reality, it was borrowed from Scots English, which borrowed it from
English English. The original words was "grammar," which referred to
what theology students studied in the university, ie, Latin. Only Latin
carried the proper magic, charm. The Catholic priests did their
hocuspocus ("hoc est corpus meum") in proper "grammar," or, in Scotland,
"glamour."

Would software developers be more glamorous if they used more
impenetrable jargon?


Marko