Subject:RE: Weird words From:Lori Olcott <lori_olcott -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Thu, 5 Oct 2006 14:01:17 -0700 (PDT)
Linguistic urban legends?
Our team has to send a quickie status update to NASA daily, and "All
systems nominal" is the standard message. I was told that it's understood
that there's always something going wrong; but as long as the problems
aren't causing major disruptions, it's not worth mentioning. Therefore
"All systems are at a nominal level of chaos." :)
Lori
> One of the more famous examples of catachresis is "nominal", as in "all
> systems are...". Friends at NASA claim that it came into being when a
> speech-giver there could not quite decipher his speech-writer's
> handwriting; the actual word was "normal". Members of the press oohed
> and aahed about this nifty new techie term and away they went.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content
delivery. Try it today! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
Easily create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to any popular Help file format or printed documentation. Learn more at http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- infoinfocus -dot- com -dot-
