The Great Term Robbery

Holmes, WN

The Great Term Robbery

journal contribution

posted on 2023-05-25, 23:31 authored by Holmes, WN

This essay reviews the bad treatment the computing industry and profession give to ordinary English, their mauling of grammar, and their distortion of vocabulary. Attention is drawn to the old standard vocabulary put together by the profession and largely ignored by the profession at present, in particular by confusing the terms data " and "information " terms that were used in the standard to allow a contrast to be made between people and machines a contrast that is ethically and morally very significant."

History

Publication title

Computer

Volume

34

Article number

5

Number

5

Pagination

94-96

ISSN

0018-9162

Publication status

Published

Rights statement

This essay has been more formally published as essay 1.3 in the author's book Computers and People " (Wiley 2006). This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. Copyright 2001 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE."