{"product_id":"technobabble-9780262023337","title":"Technobabble","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe computer revolution  like many of the technologies that preceded  is producing an abundance of new terms and catchphrases that are making their way into the English language. In this lively account  computerese expert John A. Barry chronicles an important linguistic development which he has termed technobabble: the pervasive and indiscriminate use of computer terminology  especially as it is applied to situations that have nothing at all to do with technology. Technobabble examines the new computer lexicon from an etymological  historical  and anecdotal perspective. It reveals technobabbles origins among the high priests of the advanced research laboratories of the 1950s  describing the folkways by which this sublanguage becomes incorporated into the vocabulary of the larger society  and predicting some of the new dimensions technobabble is likely to assume in coming years. Barry details the technobabble style  which is characterized by logorrhea  excessive use of the passive voice  anthropomorphism  vague and abstract language  euphemism  obfuscation  solecism  synecdoche  and mangled metaphors. And he delves into technobabbles sexual  pharmacological  political  religious  and other connotations. Perhaps one of the most troubling implications of this new style of communicating  Barry points out  is that technobabble tends to apply a mechanistic lexicon to human interaction  while describing computer processes in human terms. These days  for example  many people do not merely converse with one another; they interface. (Computers  on the other hand  are said to talk to each other.) It is not uncommon to hear people refer to their leisure hours as downtime. In CaliforniasSilicon Valley (the wellspring of much of the technobabble lexicon)  getting something off ones chest is also known as core-dumping. Conversely  computers are described as thinking and remembering  and computer programs are commonly given the pronoun he. John A. Barry is the coauthor of nine books  including the best-seller Sunburst: The Ascent of Sun Microsystems. He is editor-in-chief of SunWorld magazine for which he writes lex  a computer language column.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67958958948405,"sku":"ByrdShop_0262023334","price":35.61,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780262023337.jpg?v=1794479052","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/technobabble-9780262023337","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}