Favorite Misnomers!

MrCheeto

MrCheeto

Suspended
As a geek, misidentifying electronics and computers or computer components really jerks your subconscious. Repairing computers on a daily basis, I often receive three or more calls before I plan to wake up. (Not the most pleasant alarm clock, but it works and I pull it together so nobody knows I was asleepzing) I run across all walks of life. Those that know more than me (usually Windorks), those that think they know a lot, and those that don't know a thing except that they don't know a thing.

The ways I approach each vary.

Brains tend to want to impress or condescend due to their knowing all and never doing wrong almighty status. They will ask redundant questions, such as asking for cache size, bus speed, or memory latency... The only dissimilarity I encounter is often with synonyms and pronunciation. FireWire vs. i394, SATA with a long or short A, IDE vs. PATA etc.

Know-it-Alls will almost never falter or will correct their self inconspicuously. For instance, they will say with all confidence that their memory needs to be formatted. I would respond saying that I can indeed, "wipe the hard drive" and they will continue, "yes, just format the hard drive." or "yes, wipe the memory." Though some will simply argue. I told a client that I had dusted off the fan in their Bondi iMac and they insisted without end that the iMac didn't have a fan inside it and that I was "full of ****".

The average person doesn't know the number of elfs in a modern computer and could care less. I never confront somebody about the terminology, but I do not repeat their mistake. One person might ask that their "modem won't boot" and I would reply, "can you bring the tower to have it looked at?" and simply understand that when they say modem they mean tower and leave it at that.

So, without demeaning or insulting any person, directly or indirectly, what are your favorite misnomers that you've encountered? Remember that most of the people you run into do not know nor care to know what's inside their computer and are simply unimportant to them.

I get:
Modem, hard drive, router, CPU, processor and motherboard for a computer tower. (I asked for a hard drive at Staples and was lead to the row of towers)
iMac, Mac Apple, MacBook and Macintosh for Mac. (Surprisingly, a lot of people need technical support for their iMac PowerBook or Mac Pro G5.)
Memory for hard drive.
Zip drive for thumb drives.
iTouch for iPod Touch.
Wordy box for monitor.
iPhone 4G for iPhone 4.
Server for modem or router.
 
Some things that bug me...
When people say Computer when they mean monitor.
When they say CPU when they mean the actual, completed computer.
When they say "Downloaded" instead of "Installed".
When people use "Mac" for "Apple". ("Such and such a product by Mac")
When people just throw around the word "Gigs" like they know everything about computers.
When people say Foxfire, not Firefox.
When people call the whole Android Platform and its phones "Droids".
Memory for Hard Drive.
Emails for Txts....
 
techfreak85 said:
Some things that bug me...
When people say Computer when they mean monitor.
When they say "Downloaded" instead of "Installed".
When people just throw around the word "Gigs" like they know everything about computers.
Click to expand...

Haha! Best!

I kinda feel bad for not knowing how to reply when a person that knows nothing about computers asks "um, like, how many gig it does have?" I could throw any number out and pretend it's huge XD like "OH! It actually has twenty-thousand megs!"
I don't, though. I normally only mess with people when I genuinely feel they have it coming.

This woman sat next to me at Starbuck's and asked if I could turn my music down. I reminded her that she decided to sit next to me. As well, some man was buying my jambox for $80 but showed up with only $75. He said "It's only $5 man," to which I couldn't resist replying, "You're right, it is only $5, so stop holding out... there's an ATM around the corner." He must have been desperate for a jammy because he got my $5...

I know what you mean about gigs. "It's a 2 gig MacBook" or "It's got a lot of gigs too" or "we landed some gigs uptown."

Adding one more to the list: Word for Office...
 
MrCheeto said:
Haha! Best!

I kinda feel bad for not knowing how to reply when a person that knows nothing about computers asks "um, like, how many gig it does have?" I could throw any number out and pretend it's huge XD like "OH! It actually has twenty-thousand megs!"
I don't, though. I normally only mess with people when I genuinely feel they have it coming.

This woman sat next to me at Starbuck's and asked if I could turn my music down. I reminded her that she decided to sit next to me. As well, some man was buying my jambox for $80 but showed up with only $75. He said "It's only $5 man," to which I couldn't resist replying, "You're right, it is only $5, so stop holding out... there's an ATM around the corner." He must have been desperate for a jammy because he got my $5...

I know what you mean about gigs. "It's a 2 gig MacBook" or "It's got a lot of gigs too" or "we landed some gigs uptown."

Adding one more to the list: Word for Office...
Click to expand...

:D I will add something later. :rolleyes:
 
Blue Velvet said:
It's Acrobat (Reader) on your Mac or PC, for crying out loud, not 'Adobe'. :D
Click to expand...

Or "Abu Dhabi". No, I'm not kidding. I wish I were.

Another one that has bugged me for years is when people say "log into our website at www..." Look, unless I am entering a userid and password or some other type of authentication, it's not logging in. It's just viewing. Or visiting.
 
Blue Velvet said:
It's Acrobat (Reader) on your Mac or PC, for crying out loud, not 'Adobe'. :D
Click to expand...

IT came to me with a request last week, "can you please dump the software database to Excel? I need to correct all the mistakes before we import it into the new system". The very first record:

Product Name: Adobe
Manufacturer: (blank)

On a personal note, I see that Windows is coming out with version 9 of the internet soon.
 
Nitwits that say "I'm on the Twitters!" or they think Google is the internet.

...but not really misnomers, per say.
 
Melrose said:
Nitwits that say "I'm on the Twitters!" or they think Google is the internet.

...but not really misnomers, per say.
Click to expand...

Wait, you mean Google doesn't own the internet yet?

Along the same lines: People who consider Facebook to be the internet.

At work, I hate it when people call their user account their email account. "My email account is locked out and I can't log in to the network. Can you unlock it?"
 
steve2112 said:
Or "Abu Dhabi". No, I'm not kidding. I wish I were.
Click to expand...

Nermal said:
The very first record:

Product Name: Adobe
Manufacturer: (blank)
Click to expand...


To be fair, Adobe recognised a while ago that this had become a branding/marketing issue, which is why they changed the name to Adobe Reader... but even still, it still slightly grates in an amusing way when I hear it. Not sure why, not that it's that important, certainly not enough to go around correcting people.
 
steve2112 said:
At work, I hate it when people call their user account their email account. "My email account is locked out and I can't log in to the network. Can you unlock it?"
Click to expand...

Clients that request you buy them a domain for their website - you know, something like "myname@website.com" to make it easy for customers to log on to. :)
 
I just had a friend tell me that he only has 274 GB of "memory" left.

robbieduncan said:
People who talk about their "PIN Number" (what do they think the N in PIN is for?)
Click to expand...

It's useful when using the ATM machine.

Melrose said:
Clients that request you buy them a domain for their website - you know, something like "myname@website.com" to make it easy for customers to log on to. :)
Click to expand...

There's a car dealership here called McKenzie Auto Group. They proudly list their website and/or email address on the side of the building:

www.mckenzie.auto.group.@isp.net.nz (ISP name removed for obvious reasons)
 
Nermal said:
It's useful when using the ATM machine.
Click to expand...

I see what you did there ... ;)

Not tech related, but people here in Texas tend to call all soda Coke ... so you end up with conversations like this:

"Hey, can you get me a coke?"

"Yeah, what kind?"

"Sprite."

:rolleyes:
 
Nermal said:
There's a car dealership here called McKenzie Auto Group. They proudly list their website and/or email address on the side of the building:

www.mckenzie.auto.group.@isp.net.nz (ISP name removed for obvious reasons)
Click to expand...

Doncha just love it. :D Sometimes I have to laugh at what computer-illiterate people say.

Knowing, of course, I was once just as bad. :eek:
 
r.j.s said:
I see what you did there ... ;)

Not tech related, but people here in Texas tend to call all soda Coke ... so you end up with conversations like this:

"Hey, can you get me a coke?"

"Yeah, what kind?"

"Sprite."
Click to expand...

And that's the way I damn-well like it! You sound like a gnarb saying "soah-duh" or even worse, "pop." It's like the difference between kicks and sneakers, or "mayo" and mayonnaise. You come in my house askin' for "mayo" and there's going to be a disturbing loss in translation. Damn, I hate n00bs.
 
I was at an agency last week and working with one of the "creative writers" there. He told me he was running upstairs to get his "zip disk" so we could put my rough cut onto it for a meeting. I almost **** myself. He also said "I need a quicktime, but it must play in window media player".

God I can't believe these morons handle million dollar marketing deals on a daily basis.
 
Who the **** **** ** is putting the name "zip" in people's ******* heads?! Hey! Let's go get a Blu-Ray record player!!

Reminds me of people who say iPhone 4G. Where in any of Apple's ads was the word "4G" even mentioned?!!? And no, they don't mean 4th gen.

How the hell do these people get around?! It must be confusing as all knobbery to speak gibbering blibber blabber all day to people who speak blabbering gibber gabber!
 
MrCheeto said:
Who the **** **** ** is putting the name "zip" in people's ******* heads?! Hey! Let's go get a Blu-Ray record player!!
Click to expand...

I almost told him I had a bunch of zip disks at home he could have for free I haven't used since OS9 was out in college. But, I took the high road. :D
 
LUL you should ask "do you have a ZIP drive? Cuz I store everything in my life solely on ZIP disks" "Yeh! I use ZIP's all the time!" "Oh? Well here ya go!" "Um... WTF is this?" "WTF is that thing on your keychain?"

Dunce.
 
HAHA I almost forgot. The video we were working on was an internal pitch video so licensing issues for the song didn't matter. He wanted a certain song from "The Cult". He said we'll just "limewire it". Then I see him searching for the song title on Google on his laptop. The next 20 minutes was spent explaining to him what a torrent was and how they work. His response was "that seems complicated to limewire a song". :eek:
 
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