Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!daveb
From: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: RISC  a short answer??
Summary: marketing english (qv)
Message-ID: <2704@geac.UUCP>
Date: 6 May 88 12:42:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: geac.2704
Posted: Fri May  6 08:42:52 1988
References: <1036@nusdhub.UUCP> <1988May3.224604.2252@utzoo.uucp> <383@m3.mfci.UUCP> <1988May5.171444.849@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Organization: The Geac Pedant Department.
Lines: 21

In article <1988May5.171444.849@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>The trouble here is that we're increasingly in a situation where "RISC" is
>considered a synonym for "good".  The term is rapidly losing any more
>specific meaning because of persistent misuse.  
...
>But proper usage (as opposed to what the marketing people do) does not
>apply the name of one of these concepts indiscriminately to all the others.

  Actually, the RISCness of something is its "significant
difference" in marketing parlance, and is a sort of handle that
allows one to infer all the other things when you hear it mentioned.

  The sales-and-advertizing crowd love to overload terms (in the Ada
sense), especially if the term has anything to do with the
significant difference.  This drives real humans, technoids and
maketdroids crazy.  Not to mention us pedants.
-- 
 David Collier-Brown.                 {mnetor yunexus utgpu}!geac!daveb
 Geac Computers International Inc.,   |  Computer Science loses its
 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, |  memory (if not its mind) 
 CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 |  every 6 months.