By Kathleen Haynie
Yes, it drives me nuts. They take an English word that has some nuanced meaning for them personally, and they use it to name some untouchable gadget they have invented. And then someone else makes the gadget anew and puts a new name on it. Then it becomes daily language usage.
She was complaining that her boyfriend didn’t understand her feelings.
“He doesn’t have enough bandwidth, I guess.”
That word no longer belongs in Techieville.
Complement with an “e” gets merged into compliment with an “I” because spell check doesn’t check it. Someone must think highly of me because I am always getting complimentary “one-month free” offers.
My e-mail gadget is called a program, a file, or a client. My clients usually pay me for my services, but this one does a service for me for free!
I went to copy some text on my computer to a CD disk. The boxes say rip, export, import, burn, copy. Which is which? Is it a webpage, a site, a platform, or what?
And how do I populate a digital screen? If I click “OK,” will it apply it?
I put my computer desk in my new large bedroom. I had never slept with my laptop before, and did not know that computers, like spiders, are nocturnal creatures. In the middle of the nights, Microsoft updates my windows.
I hate cleaning my windows. The updates update my task bar so the start icon won’t open and the sound icon doesn’t adjust the sound.
The techie help support on the phone tells me to fix the problem by first opening the start icon.
“Oh, that’s right. You can’t do that.”
Help!
Kathleen Haynie. This City Girl turned into a Sonoma County Horse Girl, and then retired from decades as a professional in health care. She is now acting out a latent inclination for the dramatic arts as a drama student and cast member of Off the Page Readers Theater. Surprisingly, the journey continues into the newly found delight discovered in written expression. Kathleen felt honored to have her work, What They Did to Alice, performed at the 6th Street Playhouse 2020 Women’s Festival. She has decided that dark chocolate is perfect with a full-bodied red wine.
