The Language of Language

My younger daughter is a language nerd, but not a technology geek. She is good user of technology and enjoys the many things technology provides for her each day.

I am a technology geek, but not a language nerd. I try to be a good user of the English language, the only one I know, but I often "fail" at it, at least in her eyes.

So how do a language nerd and a technology geek communicate, when she speaks 4 languages and I speak in TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms)?

Well today I saw a story about the "International Take on @" (on the blog of Technology Plumbing Favorite Xobni). This story discusses how the various languages and cultures of the world describe the @ sign, that ubiquitous symbol between a users email name and the email domain they are part of. Finally something we can talk about, linguistically. :)

While we are on the topic of language, here are some of my favorite TLAs. These are not your standard technology terms, but my never ending attempt to describe the ideas and concepts that float into my head in an attempt to explain how information and technology really work.

R&D - Rip off and Deploy - This is not meant in bad or evil way, but with today's technology it is silly to keep reinventing the wheel, when you can download the rim and spokes and mash them into the size wheel you need to do the job. BTW: My use of "R&D" is really R&D as it is one of those terms that I have borrowed from others.

EaE - Extend and Embrace - I wrote about this one a few days ago and described it as the ability to do things outside of your normal world by not worrying about how it fits in or how to control it. Make it work and figure out how to make it part of your world later.

SME - SME - A "subject matter expert" in Synthesis, Morphing and Extending. In other words a person who can take other's ideas and products and make them better at doing both what they were designed for as well as taking them in directions not envisioned by their creator.

APU - Absorb, Process, Utilize - When we all live on a river of information with so much information coming at us all the time, it is a way to to deal with this flow. Absorb as much as you can, process / filter the information and then put it to use in your job, your life or just winning the next Scholastic Bowl competition.

There are many more TLAs I like and use (some would say too often), but I will save them for another day. Please share your favorite common and not so common TLAs with the Technology Plumbing community by commenting on this blog entry.