User Lingo.

[liber-cogito.livejournal.com]

"Cut it on."
And
"Cut it off."

In reference to powering up or down a PC, or any electronic device.
WTF? 
Where did this come from? 
How does "Cut it on" make sense in ANY context? 

What's the most baffling user terminology you've run into?

Comments

[margaretc.livejournal.com]

Not just rural, but pretty much everywhere in the south. I use it for light switches, interchangeably with 'turn it on/off' and 'cerrada la luz/apaga la luz'. I've certainly HEARD it for computers, but I don't think I've used it for them. Monitors, sure, but not computers.
I'm a suburban-raised deep Southerner (south Louisiana) with a New York mom and a California dad, and I'm teaching my kid Spanish. Language is a funny thing, isn't it?

[liber-cogito.livejournal.com]

Haha, okay. I'm NY born and raised living in Tampa, FL. I was completely mystified the first time I heard it and had no idea what on earth they were talking about.

[rev-thumper.livejournal.com]

Just a user attempt to turn the noun "cut off switch" into a verb.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

See post below - "knife switch".

No longer in any way technically accurate or relevant, but then neither is "turning" off, for any device manufactured in the last 20 years. For that matter, most modern devices aren't even "off" in the logical sense of the word when you push the "power" button anymore, but nobody's rushing to change the terminology either. ("Remember to put your PS3 in sleep mode when you're done playing, dear!")

[bamatone.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't know these phrases were *not* common anywhere else. *shrug*

[uapyro.livejournal.com]

Nor did I

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

completely off topic... you're following our twitter feed... see user icon :)

[bamatone.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am! And the FTH blog via RSS. :D

I actually planning to visit J. Clyde's tonight for the Birmingham Liberty on the Rocks event, and I've been told that Tuesday is half price pint night! Can't wait to check out the newly freed hops. :D

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

do you know about Danner's dinner on Saturday? 5 course meal, 5 high ABV beers, $44+tax and grat :)

[bamatone.livejournal.com]

I do think that hit my radar, but I'll be out of the country for a week starting Friday morning. There will be other events!

Egan's in Tuscaloosa is a pretty hot place for HTH events, and I think Temerson Square Bar has had some lately. I'll get my extra hops eventually!

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

Bo Hicks at Egan's is a good guy, and is doing a lot to push good beer.

For a change it's a good time to be a beer drinker in Bama :)

[amberite.livejournal.com]

'cerrada la luz/apaga la luz'

That's interesting. My dad says "close the light" and he's Eastern European Jewish from Montreal.

[dr-zira.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I've lived in (relatively) civilized areas of Virginia for my whole life. It's pretty common terminology.

[two-pi-r.livejournal.com]

"I had to wiki the hell out of the web"

[4bit4.livejournal.com]

I get the standard, I can't turn on my Outlook or some such thing in reference to starting an application.

[singitsilent.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Northern VA (read: DC suburb) and knew ONE PERSON who said this. Used to drive me berserk.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Remember the old Frankenstein movies? "IT'S ALIVE...!" Remember the great bigass switch that Igor would throw? A generation or three ago, those were a very common type of switch used to control power to equipment... and they're called "knife switches".



No, the average user who uses that phraseology can't explain its etymology... but that's where it comes from.

[uapyro.livejournal.com]

Or up until 5 years ago that was the "cut off switch" to the power in my house; though a little bit safer and was enclosed somewhat

[liber-cogito.livejournal.com]

Awesome, I was wondering if it came from somewhere. Thank you.

[alohawolf.livejournal.com]

Kilofeet - Always Seems to drive my friends nuts, used very commonly in the telecom world.

Turn Up/Turn Down - Also Telecom, seems to drive none phone people crazy, but not as much as kilofeet.

Do the Needful - Indian English/Call Center nose

Please Revert - Indian English/Call Center Noise.

[alohawolf.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

Yeah, or something, tho really, I just think of it as push the ticket to the next step.

Its the one phrase I've thought about having put on a T-Shirt

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

"Kilofeet" might be common in your world o' telecom, but I've never heard it used in mine. (I worked as a technical consultant for a national T-1 vendor for a couple of years, and still work in and around the biz as an independent.)

[alohawolf.livejournal.com]

I did xDSL and T-1, as you know, T-1 is not distance limited (well mostly, I think there is a 36kf limit for HDSL)

[celyste.livejournal.com]

we have a quality department that was outsourced. we often have requests to "Kindly coach agent" for whatever reason. Just bugs me because i could nicely speak to the person, or i could be nice to the requestor and speak to the person. So, generally... I ignore the request. *L*

[buckaction.livejournal.com]

ugh, ugh ugh!

I hate that goddamn word... "coach"

2 weeks ago I made a simple typo in one of my cases, which led to the part order being incorrectly assigned to the wrong group. Easy enough to catch and fix, obviously enough just a simple typo. Yet it set someone's ass on fire somewhere, leading to a polite, but condescending e-mail sent to my department head, then to my supervisor advising them to "coach" me on the "proper" way to do a part order.

Fuck you lady! I made a frigging TYPO. A clerical error, not a fucking process error. I don't need "coaching" in anything you twit.

[celyste.livejournal.com]

I can just imagine the "commitment" line in that one.

"I will stop making typos."

and then ask the 'uppers' to do the same *L*.

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

"bounce" - a really disgusting word for reboot

fuck, even I started saying it.

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

I always feel like physically 'bouncing the server'

[dr-zira.livejournal.com]

If I had a nickel for every time the term "bounce" is used in my office, I would have a lot of nickels... bounce the port, bounce the card, bounce the DSLAM... I try not to think too much about the absurdity of it.

[wignersfriend.livejournal.com]

Just had someone use this in the subject of a downtime notice. Hot damn, that is annoying.

"MTier bounce of $ProductionServer"

[7rives7.livejournal.com]

i will never get over people calling a tower a hard drive and a monitor the computer.

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

"The little cord that connects the TV to the typewriter has gone missing!" (http://www.deadtroll.com/index2.html?/video/parents.html~content)

[confectionqueen.livejournal.com]

Here, everything is a server - computer, server, internet, monitor, modem....

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Well, the NAT router *does* have a DHCP server in it .. (ducks and runs)

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

I work at a pretty decent-sized university in the states, where we have insane security procedures so as to be in compliance with federal privacy policy.

One of these procedures is that all accounts that are newly created, or that for whatever reason change their password, must have a passphrase, minimum 15 characters, three or four distinct words (I forget which) of two or more distinct letters, separated by a non-alphanumeric character such as a space.

What gets me is that we have people - people who have GOTTEN INTO COLLEGE - who call them "paraphrases."

[tuba-man.livejournal.com]

"Outen the lights" I just heard this one from my girlfriend. Apparently a popular phrase among the Pennsylvania Dutch.

[4ti3k4t35.livejournal.com]

Someone at the place where I work has started calling the process of removing and replacing a mobile device's battery to reboot it a 'battery slap'.

It started showing up in notes.

People started saying it.

I hate it.

I am also completely bewildered when I have someone read back a string to me that involves a quotation mark " and they read it as a parenthesis ( ). I mean, one person, I'd totally understand. But this is like 70% percent of the time! With all different people! D:

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

"Computer":


"Hard drive":


There are certain regions where this usage is nearly universal. Let's just say there far from any place likely to incorporate "Silicon" in its name.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

"Router":


(this is especially fun if the actual router, the device I'm troubleshooting, isn't this device..)

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

alternate definition of "router":

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

And let's not even go into the scenario where they actually have something physically outside the house, and what they're calling the "modem" is actually a passive PoE injector .. :p

[red-scully.livejournal.com]

Verbatim, greatest user terminology ever: "My connection is slow. I think my computer needs more 'mega BITES' (which I think you know')." I got this ticket escalated up to me from my boyfriend; totally made my day.

"My boss has requested an 'UP to date', fairly fast, laptop which can handle USB Pens and Pencils."

I also get sick of people calling their PC the 'hard drive'. It drives me ballistic. NO.

I hate how users use 'internet' and 'intranet' interchangeably, and whenever something stops working they ring to tell me that "the server is down". Which one?! What makes you so sure that a server is down?! It's your job to report the SYMPTOMS and I shall diagnose the problem. GAH.