Stephen Harrison: woke Echoes, Epicgenius, St. Pat & Curling

Because no one else is doing it--not even the media.
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sashi
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Stephen Harrison: woke Echoes, Epicgenius, St. Pat & Curling

Post by sashi » Wed Apr 04, 2018 3:07 am

Hmm... :ugeek: ... Mr. Harrison (tw) is definitely a focused freelancer... who has even offered to interview BrillLyle.

  • "If You See Something, Write Something", New York Times, Mar 28, 2018. §
  • "Why the Wikipedia Page for St. Patrick is So Good" Slate, Mar 16, 2018. §
  • "The Battle for Curling's Wikipedia Page" Vice Sports, Feb 16, 2018. §
  • "Don’t call it 'Siri': Why the wake word should be “computer" Salon, Nov 26, 2017. §

Should Mr. Harrison stop by, the story of the marketing director at IBM France writing to his former teacher (a Sorbonne philologist) to ask for branding help is a classic French(y) tale. Though Jacques Perret, the philologist in question, ended up coining ordinateur with his reply, he did suggest that ordinatrice was more in line with IBM's branding (in 1955). IBM chose the masculine to translate "Electronic Data Processing System", perhaps to remain closer to ecclesiastical language. Reading Harrison's comment (in the last article) about the feminine names of these digital know-it-alls reminded me of this story... are woke Echoes branded to be servile?

Jacques Perret wrote:Le 16 avril 1955
Cher Monsieur,
Que diriez-vous d’ordinateur? C’est un mot correctement formé, qui se trouve même dans le Littré comme adjectif désignant Dieu qui met de l’ordre dans le monde.
[ ... ]
Combinateur a l’inconvénient du sens péjoratif de combine.
[ ... ]
Congesteur [...] digesteur
[ ... ]
En relisant les brochures que vous m’avez données, je vois que plusieurs de vos appareils sont désignés par des noms d’agent féminins (trieuse, tabulatrice). Ordinatrice serait parfaitement possible et aurait même l’avantage de séparer plus encore votre machine du vocabulaire de la théologie.

source


my translation wrote:April 16, 1955
Dear Sir,
What would you say about ordinateur? It's a correctly formed word, which can even be found in the Littré (19th C. dictionary), where it is defined as an adjective designating God qua maintainer of order in the world.
[ ... ]
Combinateur has the disadvantage of [bringing to mind] the pejorative meaning of combine (ploy, racket, machinations)
[ ... ]
Congester ... digester
[ ... ]
Rereading the brochures that you gave me, I see that several of your machines are designated by (grammatically) feminine agent names (trieuse, tabulatrice). Ordinatrice would work perfectly and would even distance your machine from theological vocabulary.


congestrice has my vote.

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