Wednesday, January 09, 2008
I Need a Place to Quiess My Weary Head
Information Technology people love to make up words. In a recent technical change deployment guide, that I had the privilege to vet, the following instruction was found:
1. Quiess the Testing Environment.
So...what the heck does quiess mean, everyone asked. Well the grammar detective squad got right on it. Turns out that there is no such verb. Doesn't exist. Never did. What's happened is that some geek who knows more about fibre optic cabling than language thinks (s)he is also an expert in the fine art of human communication. The nerd has gotten it into her head that just because she knows the $5.00 word queiscent and can use it in a sentence to impress her new boyfriend, that she can make up a word that she thinks derives from the root. In fact, it's a feeble attempt to create a verb from the Latin quiescere that means "to become quiet or rest". So our misguided geek wants to put the testing environment in a state of quiet or inactivity, perhaps to distinguish that state from a complete shutdown of servers and services. That's my guess. Here is the definition that has gotten our technical guru into all the trouble in the first place: (from the online Webster's dictionary -)
Main Entry: qui·es·cent
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin quiescent-, quiescens, present participle of quiescere to become quiet, rest, from quies
Date: 1605
1 : marked by inactivity or repose : tranquilly at rest 2 : causing no trouble or symptoms
synonyms see latent
— qui·es·cent·ly adverb
1. Quiess the Testing Environment.
So...what the heck does quiess mean, everyone asked. Well the grammar detective squad got right on it. Turns out that there is no such verb. Doesn't exist. Never did. What's happened is that some geek who knows more about fibre optic cabling than language thinks (s)he is also an expert in the fine art of human communication. The nerd has gotten it into her head that just because she knows the $5.00 word queiscent and can use it in a sentence to impress her new boyfriend, that she can make up a word that she thinks derives from the root. In fact, it's a feeble attempt to create a verb from the Latin quiescere that means "to become quiet or rest". So our misguided geek wants to put the testing environment in a state of quiet or inactivity, perhaps to distinguish that state from a complete shutdown of servers and services. That's my guess. Here is the definition that has gotten our technical guru into all the trouble in the first place: (from the online Webster's dictionary -)
Main Entry: qui·es·cent
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin quiescent-, quiescens, present participle of quiescere to become quiet, rest, from quies
Date: 1605
1 : marked by inactivity or repose : tranquilly at rest 2 : causing no trouble or symptoms
synonyms see latent
— qui·es·cent·ly adverb
