Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with terminology

How do I set up a simple database for vocabulary terms?

washburn — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:07:02 -0800

How do I make a database of vocabulary terms and definitions to use for teaching? What software, settings, etc. should I use? I teach college level courses in the humanities, and my students are often responsible for learning a range of terms and definitions.

So, I'd like to compile a database of terms and their corresponding definitions. This database could then, theoretically, be used in generating quizzes, exams, and review sheets that I could give to my students. What would be the best software and procedures to accomplish this?

Is Microsoft Access the way to go? If so, as one who hasn't used Access before, where can I find a quick tutorial to help me learn how to best set up this type of simple database up and occasionally import some of its contents to Word?

A few considerations:

*I use Microsoft Word 2003. Items should be easy to import into Word and be saved as part of exams that include other non-vocab related sections.

*A feature of lesser importance (but still nice) would be an ability to tag terms, to indicate what sorts of subject matter they relate to.

*I'm not a programmer, so the simpler the better.

Thanks for any advice.

Lost My GoogleFu. Boo. :)

DrtyBlvd — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:28:55 -0800

Website Creation - What do I look for in order to find how to make a website of a particular type; the sort that is a background image with no visible links; but hovering over an item in, and then clicking over an item in, the background image acts as a link? I'm sure there's loads of instructions out there but I can't even find a site to show what I mean, letalone use search terms that return any kind of meaningful results! Thank you for any suggestions :)

db

How do I easily keep olive juice out of my Mexican Martini?

Swifty — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:30:10 -0800

What is the shorthand to order a Mexican Martini without olive juice at a bar that inexplicably decided it was a good idea to add it to every Mexican Martini they make? So, I'm in Austin, I like drinking Mexican Martini's. As far as I'm concerned, this drink should just be a Margarita up with an olive. I do not believe turning it into a Margarita into a Martini automatically implies that you want a *gag* Dirty Margarita. However, many of the more "trendy" places here in Austin add olive juice to every one they make unless you tell them not to.

So, what's the drink ordering shorthand for "no olive juice". Dirty means to add a small amount to a martini obviously, but I've never heard anyone order a martini "clean" before. Do people actually say that? If not, is there anything I can say other than "Mexican Martini, and please don't add any damned olive juice to it and ruin the drink" every time I order? :)

What do you call your cousin's cousin's cousin's kids?

(bb|[^b]{2}) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:06:13 -0800

I need an argument settled over the proper title for each of these relatives: (1) Your great-aunt's children, (2) Your cousin's children. Are they both called second cousin or cousin once removed, or something completely different?

Swedish terms for genitalia "neutral"?

megob — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 01:50:34 -0800

Which are the words that refer to the genital organs in Swedish? I've been told that Swedish has a "neutral" sexual/anatomic terminology that is neither vulgar, nor childish, nor medical/technical. "They call it like we call a nose a nose, and a leg a leg". What are these terms, how do they sound, what do they connotate, how do they feel to the ear, to which sociolect do they belong? In which way and degree are they "neutral", and are they at all?
I am not thinking about word like "penis" and the like, as they belong to the technical/medical kind. I am not interested in Swedish sexual slang either, or in any personal habit of denominating these body parts. I just wonder if it's true that there is an established "unbiased" terminology from a linguistic point of view the Swedes can happily make use of. (Similar question was asked here for English, but no appropriate answer found.)
No competent Swedish speaker at hand, so can you help? And: any online resources on the subject?

What are these 19th century terms?

clockworkjoe — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:50:17 -0800

I am working on republishing a 19th century memoir but I have come across a few terms I don't understand. Please help me figure out if they are typos in the original manuscript or real terms. Here's they are. I've bolded each term I don't understand. The memoir is written by an Irish priest, Father John Joseph Hogan, who became the first bishop of Kansas City.

In 1496 the English statute, 1o King Henry VII, known as the Poyning Law, from its promoter Edward Poyning, an Englishman, Lord Deputy for Ireland, enacted that Englishmen should govern Ireland...

At nightfall the good ship Berlin rounded the Holyhead Capes, was the next morning out of the Irish Sea and into St. George’s Channel; thence south-westward, out of the cold fogs and mists of northern Europe, she cleaved the waves onward to the Azore Islands, which she reached on the eighth day of the voyage, Thursday, 16th November; 1,500 miles from Liverpool, at average rate of sailing 7f miles per hour.

From Abaco, leaving the islands of Andros and New Providence on the left, we sailed towards the Florida Reefs, by which we coasted until we were to southward of Key West, which was on Monday morning, December i ith. The course we had sailed from Abaco to Key West was necessarily very oblique, as it lay between and around islands and along the great curve of the Florida coast. The distance sailed was about 300 miles. Time, from 6 P. M. Friday to 10 A. M. Monday, 40 hours; average sailing per hour, 7j miles.

Evolution of Disability Termiology a Class-based Struggle?

The Confessor — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:38:46 -0800

A few years ago I formulated a sociological theory about the evolution of terms used to refer to those afflicted by certain classes of disabilities, whether physical or mental, in which more functional members of the class resent being "bundled" with less functional members and are hence in a constant, mostly subconscious, quest for differentiation. This leads to development of ever more benign terms ("handicapable!") which themselves quickly become associated with the whole, therefore perpetuating the cycle. The theory seemed obvious to me when I thought of it, but I've yet to see it espoused or debunked elsewhere. Have you? Or, failing that, do you see any obvious arguments for or against it? Two examples, in case I wasn't clear enough with my explanation:

A paraplegic, for instance, might once have said of a quadriplegic: "I'm not a cripple, he's a cripple! I'm just a bit... disabled.", and a relatively high-functioning mental patient might once have said of a near-vegetable: "I'm not an idiot, he's an idiot! I'm just slightly retarded."

Is there a term for "false synonymy"?

Dr. Send — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:16:45 -0800

Is there a term for the fallacy of "false synonymy", where two different words are treated as if they mean the same thing? "False synonymy" sounds like a good term for it, but Google only turns up 135 hits.

Which term: Bandwidth, Throughput, Download Speed, Else?

Quarter Pincher — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:30:42 -0800

Throughput, download speed, bandwidth, or something else -- which of these am I trying to say? I can download a huge file, topping speeds of around 140 KB/s. Is 140 KB/s my maximum download speed? And isn't that speed the same for all information I can receive, or just file transfers? I was trying to tell a friend that my DSL recently got bumped up in speed -- when I noticed that my previously-familiar download speed of 80 KB/s (kilobytes per second) is now suddenly in the 120-140 KB/s range, without a change in service plans. He tried to tell me that "download speed" isn't the right term, but couldn't offer an alternative or bother to explain the differences.

I'm from the 2400 baud modem era, and typically estimated my max bandwidth (my word) by the maximum apparent speed at which I could download a large file (a RAR for instance) the quickest, and assumed that's the maximum by which information of any kind could reach me. When I moved up to a 56,600 baud on dialup, I could pull down from 3.5KB/s to 4.5KB/s tops on a big file. Now with the DSL, I was getting 80KB/s, but now I'm getting 140 KB/s max download speeds. Is that my bandwidth, or download speed, or throughput, or what?

We play Halo 3 on XBL regularly, and he asserted that the communicating speed from x360 to XBL server is calculated differently than being governed by whatever limiter governs my 140 KB/s, but that doesn't make much sense to me. Hivemind, clear us both up!

What is the name for this type of fencing?

imposster — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:35:43 -0800

What is the name for this type of fence? Fairly thin metal posts with lots of tabs punched out onto which a large metal mesh can be placed (not chain link) and fastened. (And where can I get some?) I remember this type of fence growing up but never knew the name of it. Now I like to get some, but I can't find it anywhere and since I don't know the name of it, and can't ask for it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

SEO for a product known by different names in different English-speaking countries?

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:18:40 -0800

SEO for a product known by different names in different English-speaking countries? [Please assume by the way what I'm talking about white-hat SEO, not tricks, and that I know that semantic HTML, good, updated content and inbound links are key SEO factors.]

How would you deal with a situation where you're trying to optimise your website for a search term, but different English-speaking countries use different words for the same thing?

Say your company makes "scrunchies", those hairband things. Now, "scrunchie" is a made-up word. There's no official term for them.

Now imagine you're trying to sell internationally, and you find that in Canada, they're called "scroonchers", in the UK they're called "kranchies" and in Australia they're called "chuzzwazzas".

You want your product's name up there in the title, the URL, the H1 and so on, but there are four different names for your product.

Would you create separate sites for those different countries?

Would you use text like "scrunchies (aka scroonchers, etc)" into your pages?

Would you trust that Google is smart enough that all four of those terms are linked up in their magical taxonomy database and a search for one will return results for the others?

When is a cover song not a cover song?

SansPoint — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:13:30 -0800

Is it still, technically, a cover song when the original songwriter records a track that they wrote for someone else? Take, as an example, Iggy Pop's "China Girl" - written by David Bowie for Iggy and recorded in 1977. In 1983, Bowie rerecorded it and put it on the Let's Dance album. Another example, slightly more obscure is "Video Killed the Radio Star" - written by Trevor Horn for Bruce Wooley and The Camera Club, and then re-recorded by Horn's group Buggles. We know which of those versions was better known.

There's other examples too. Are the re-recorded versions, then, still covers, or is there some other term for this?

Which one is the hip pocket?

exceptinsects — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 16:20:34 -0800

Is the "hip pocket" the front pocket or the back pocket? My whole life, I thought the hip pocket was in back. But I just read something that seemed to imply that the hip pocket is in front.

My visual dictionary is no help in this case--it just calls them "front top pocket" and "back pocket".

Is it a regional thing, or is it like how I used to think "mausoleum" rhymed with "linoleum" because I never heard anyone say it?

Better synonyms needed

ricochet biscuit — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:54:23 -0800

Vocabularyfilter: I am looking for some near-synonyms for "binary" and "analog" but without the techie sheen those both have. For a checklist of questions, I need a way to distinguish between two types of questions: some of the items are answerable by a simple "yes or no" while others have a spectrum of responses, each worth a certain value on a numerical scale. That is to say, if questions are worth five points each, some will be scored only zero or five (the "yes or no" items), while other items might get a two or a four or a one. The placeholder terms I am using right now are "yes or no" and "rateable," but I am sure there must be more elegant terms than these.

What's Pre-Roll?

Ironmouth — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:53:28 -0800

What Does Pre-Roll Mean? A friend is filming an event for a producer with his high-end video camera. The producer is asking for 5 minutes of "pre-roll" on each tape. What does that mean?

Archie Bunker lived in an Archie Bunker

SansPoint — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:13:16 -0800

Did the term "Archie Bunkers" for the detached houses in Queens, NY come from "All in the Family," or did Norman Lear name the character after the term?

What do you call everything but the serif?

miniape — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:22:53 -0800

Is there a (preferably single-word) term that picks out every part of a character except the serif? In other words, if I wanted you to circle all the parts of a character except the serif, I would say "Circle the x", where x is something other than something like "parts that aren't the serif."

I've looked through some lists of font terms but I can't find one. Thanks.

Name for the scene at the end of a movie--post credits

ColdChef — Tue, 06 May 2008 05:04:13 -0800

Is there a name for the small scene that comes at the end of a film--after the credits? Two summer movies I've seen so far have a scene after the credits. When did this start? The first one I can remember is Ferris Bueller admonishing the audience to go home, because the film is over. Is there a website that keeps track of this?

Songs with overlapping verses?

trivirgata — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:47:18 -0800

What is the musical term for songs that feature overlapping or simultaneous verses? The only two examples that I can think of to illustrate what I'm talking about are "All for the Best" from Godspell and Irving Berlin's "You're in Love." Anyone ever come across a list of songs of this type, specifically songs from the world of musical theater?

Terminology Management software solutions

gemmy — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:28:45 -0800

Software for keeping lists of terms and definitions organized? Help me tame the glossary monster. My work publishes several sector-specific reports each quarter, containing updates on what's been happening in that sector and in the market. These reports also contain a "glossary" with definitions/descriptions - like brief bios of the people mentioned in the report, acronym definitions, and explanations of specific terms used in the text. There is substantial overlap with the terms used, both between sectors and over time. The full glossaries have so far been stored in a flat Word file for each report - split up by sector - and the lists get updated each quarter. This has worked OK for a while, but the lists have now become unwieldy. There is also a lot of differences in wording between sector versions.

I am looking for some recommendations for software that might help me keep the terms and their definitions organized in one place - with just one entry per term (that would help with consistency across sectors). However, I also need to be able to export subsets of the definitions for use in our reports. I looked online and found AnyLexic, which seems like it might be along the lines of what I'm looking for. So I'd also like to know if anyone has experience with this particular program.

-Windows 2000/XP environment
-Need to be able to export a subset of definitions to Word/Excel or CSV.
-Reasonably priced for a non-profit

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks!

What's The Word? And it ain't Thunderbird!

jonmc — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 08:54:50 -0800

Lit-crit/what the hell is the word I'm looking for? I really like the novels of John Sayles, Mike Magnusson, Chris Offutt, Tom Perotta, Moredcai Richler and early Richard Price. These authors vary widely in background and subject matter, but their prose style is very similar in a way that I can't quite put my finger on. I'm talking prose style (especially the way they write dialogue) as opposed to subject matter or their own personal background here.

I keep wanting to say 'conversationalist' or 'naturalist' but those aren't the right terms, are they? What's the word I'm looking for, the technical term a literature professor would use?

Bonus question: any female writers who write in a similar style? I'm looking to broaden my horizons.

when should I say 'african american' and when 'black' ?

krautland — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:48:44 -0800

when should I say 'african american' and when 'black' ? when I use "african-american" I feel as if I am being overly politically correct and when I use "black" I fear I'm just being rude. to me, a non-native speaker, this whole area feels murky and based on an implied understanding that I just haven't picked up on.

so when is it appropriate to use which term in a verbal conversation and/or writing?

for the record: krautland is not looking to offend. krautland is seeking information so he doesn't accidentally do so.

Ask a Librarian

Jeff Howard — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:56:11 -0800

I'm trying to research the origin of the term "touchpoint" as it's used in this 2003 McKinsey quote: "Brands are delivered at touchpoints, which for a hotel include reservations, check-in and checkout, frequent-stay programs, room service, business services, exercise facilities, laundry service, restaurants, and bars." Today this term is widely used in the industry to describe the ways in which a customer comes into contact with a business, but I can't pin down exactly who coined it or how early it came to be used in this way... I've been able to trace examples of this usage to 1993 but there's no smoking gun. No book or academic paper or journal article that proposes the term (the literature had been using the terms "tangibles" or "service evidence" for this concept in the 80s and 90s). Early citations generally refer to it in quotes as "touch point" or "touch-point." In a few cases authors (or their editors) feel obliged to briefly define the term but the earliest references are offhand. No one seems to frame it as a new concept or bother to reference its source.

Here's what I've tried so far. Google Books. Google Scholar. Amazon Search-Inside. Microsoft Live Search Books. The Internet Archive (only back to 1996). Marketing and Branding textbooks. The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Online article databases such as infotrac, proquest and ebscohost.

OED traces the term to a 1602 text on astronomy but that's not what I'm looking for. I can also find plenty of apperances of the term before 1993 in other contexts (acupuncture, engineering) but not used to describe the points of contact between a customer and a business.

Here are my questions:

1. What other resources would you use to search? I've exhausted every tool that I'm familiar with.

2. Do you know the origin of the term? Anyone here with a branding or marketing background who can speak to whether the term touchpoint was in general use before the mid-nineties?

3. Is it possible that this term doesn't have a particular source? That there isn't a "first" article or book out there to find? I've never thought much about how terminology for a discipline evolves, so some insight in that regard would be helpful.

How do you say hotlink in Hindi or service provider in Swedish?

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 10:29:28 -0800

How does one say hotlink, download/save, and hosting provider in French, German, Japanese, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Hindi? I'm preparing a graphic to redirect hotlinkers to via .htaccess, and, instead of the universal language of an offensive image, I thought I would use something a little more polite. I would like to say, "Please do not (hyperlink/hotlink) to this (image/graphic). Please (save/download/copy) the (image/graphic) to your own hosting provider."

The problem is that you can't literally translate link or host, because they don't use the same concepts as in english. For example, the french word for for link, lien, isn't used to refer to the things you click on to navigate web pages. I saw "liason chaude" used on a canadian page, but my french isn't that good and I want to make sure I'm not asking people to refrain from steamy sexual relations with my images.

I could just use the literal string "hyperlink" or "hotlink" and would probably accomplish 99% of what I'm trying to do, but I figured since I'm trying to be all culturally sensitive and polite and stuff, I might as well at least attempt to do it right.

I'd like to do the 5-7 languages most commonly found on the net, and to have a good spread of alphabets, too. I'm guessing a good selection would be (I don't know in what order)Swedish, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and maybe Hindi, but if someone has actually done the research on which ones are best to cover, I'll use those.

What's the word for data transfer by carrying a drive?

Bugbread — Tue, 01 May 2007 17:22:48 -0800

What's the comedic/facetious word/phrase for extremely high bandwidth as a result of just plain carrying a disk drive? I remember reading an article somewhere that referred to the high-latency, super-high-bandwidth transfer speeds obtained by just picking up a hard drive and taking it somewhere. I was thinking it was HAN (Human Area Network), but that apparently has a different meaning. I've seen the term in more than one place, so I know it wasn't just a one-off in that article, but try as I might (and google as I might) I can't remember the term.