In my dreams you traverse like a caress that I can see, alas cannot feel

And when I’m awake you taunt me with the distance that separates us

My dreams are then to me more dearer.

Tags: Original Poetry, Poem, Poetry, Verse

Landmark used to be one of my preferred haunts each time I visited the Forum mall. And I don’t know what I was thinking when I signed up for their loyalty card (or whatever they call it) some two years ago. I did ask them why they wanted my email id and mobile number. The reply was prompt, “we’ll send you your card number/something sir.”

The nightmare that began like a drizzle back then continues like a torrent, which shows no sign of stopping even as we speak. The appropriate word is SPAM. In my email inbox and in the inbox on my cellphone. At an average rate of five SMSes per week and god knows how many in my email. I really don’t want to know which author is ornamenting their store “this week” or what new delicious discount they have on offer currently. “Furious” is too mild to even begin describing the feeling I have each time I see something with “TMLandmark” on my mobile.

The real issue however, is the clueless marketing guys at Landmark who thought it was a brilliant idea to harvest my email address and mobile phone number without informing me the real reason at the time of asking my personal information. I trusted them when they said it was for sending some information. And they betrayed my trust. They didn’t have my consent to jam my inbox with useless crap. Also, for the record, I’ve received nothing till date except crappy spam messages.

Perhaps they thought this was a clever way to show…what? That they “always have the customer on their mind?” I mean, if they seriously think that spamming people’s inboxes with stupid marketing offers is going get them more customers, someone in their marketing team clearly doesn’t know his/her job. If anything, it drives even existing customers away.

For heaven’s sake, Landmark is a bookstore–okay, they also sell gift items, DVDs, etc but as a bookstore, they do a horrible job even apart from spamming. As any book lover will tell you, people who take their book-shopping seriously will primarily visit a bookstore that meets these criteria among others:

• A wide range of selections, not just the current bestsellers (in any genre/category). That means, the store should stock even the most obscure titles whether it sells or just sits there rusting.
• Enough stock of the said obscure titles. I hunted for How Proust can change your Life, a title not obscure by any means. It was unavailable at Landmark even after following up with them after two months. In contrast, the venerable Mr. Shanbhag at Premier Book Shop unearthed it for me within 5 minutes.
• Conveying information promptly to the customer as soon as the title becomes available. This begins to look like a sad joke after they write down your number and promise to inform you when out-of-stock books become available. To repeat what I already said: what’s worse is the moment they have your number–you don’t need to fill up any loyalty program or scheme–it’s like they’ve given themselves the license to unleash textual hell upon you. They won’t inform the availability but they won’t stop spamming you.

The decor, lighting and general swankiness of the store doesn’t really count for anything. It’s like the tastiest food made without salt. I’d rather go to Select Bookshop or the now-defunct Premier Book shop and know for sure that I’ll find what I’m looking for than go to Landmark and walk away disappointed.

Back to the subject of spamming, I found to my utter delight that they quickly responded to my angry Tweet thusly:

Hey hi – saw your tweet on Landmark bookstore. Any problem? – did you get any email which you did not subscribe for???

To which I responded:

Yes. You took my email Id for a form I’d filled at your store & began spamming me without asking my permission.

What followed was even more retarded.

1. Sorry if that had created any trouble. I would like to remove your email address from our list…

2. can you please drop an email to sundarsrinivasan@landmark-tata.com fwd the last email u recd from that email address.

First they harvest my email ID and begin to endlessly spam me. None of their marketing email-spam has an unsubscribe option. And now they want me to send an email to some dude to remove me from their list? This would’ve been pure hilarity had it not been so utterly annoying. No, I won’t send any damn email to them: I’ve relegated them to the SPAM-and-TRASH folder long ago, bless you Gmail! Though the other problem remains: of receiving spam SMSes on my phone. Talking to the equally-clueless Vodafone hasn’t helped at all. Any ideas?

What’s with these guys who still think that sending email newsletters is one of the best practices of selling? How many of the 6,767,805,208 Internet users (as of June 2009) actually read these well-designed but stupid and pointless newsletters? I don’t argue that email newsletters/campaigns are completely wasteful but think about it: I will read it if I want to read it; forcing it down my throat will cause me to puke. Ask me first. Don’t they realize that spamming is a serious put off and potential business-wounder in an age when more and more people are ordering books online? Their marketing team or whoever is in charge is woefully behind in its knowledge about online customer behavior–people who buy stuff online. As an aside, if you’re in India, Flipkart does a good job of timely delivery. So far.

I never set foot in Landmark the day I realized what they were doing with my contact information. Do you hear me Landmark? That’s about close to 2 years in which time I bought 30-plus books. Not from you.

Tags: Book Shopping, Books, Customer Service, Landmark Bangalore, Landmark Bookstore, Landmark Spam, Landmark-Forum Mall

Before we begin, remember that a face-to-face interview happens only when you have a resume compelling enough to draw your prospective employer’s attention amongst thousands others. This is one of the soundest advices on how to write your resume.

Demonstrable Experience

Mere experience is not enough. You need to demonstrate it during the interview. Use examples, real projects you worked on, and how that relates to that bullet point in your CV. Knowing something, being great at something is just half the battle won. The other half is showing it. This rather bizzare way of demonstrating experience landed this guy a job in Microsoft France.

An Interview is a Discussion

An interview is a discussion not an interrogation: make sure you talk to your interviewer as an equal. You’re not doing a favour to your prospective employer by joining there and vice versa. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Things like loyalty have to be earned by the company in just the same way as you need to earn your promotions and hikes.

Body language

You know the drill: maintain eye contact; stay relaxed; don’t shift too much; pay attention to posture and the rest of the jazz.

Clear articulation

Say what you want to say clearly. Speak slowly if you must. Clear articulation is a function of clear thinking. The more you punctuate your conversation with “you know,” “umm,” “huh,” “I mean,” “you see,” the faster you send the message that you suffer from lack of clarity of thought.

Back up everything

Don’t put something in your CV that you can’t justify: If you rate yourself as possessing “expert” level knowledge in Flash, be very sure you are an expert in Flash. If you include a long list of accomplishments for a prestigious and difficult project, be prepared to explain those accomplishments in detail.

Do your homework

Read up on the company. Read the job description carefully and read it a hundred times if that’s what it takes for you to understand it thoroughly. Ask intelligent questions about your role. I maybe generalizing a bit here but after some experience in applying for jobs, you’ll figure out that most job descriptions are poorly-worded and unclear. Here’s an unenviable example of a job description written in classical Martian:

If you’re looking for a new role where you’ll focus on one of the biggest issues that is top of mind for KT and Steve B in ‘Compete’, build a complete left to right understanding of the subsidiary, have a large amount of executive exposure, build and manage the activities of a v-team of 13 district Linux& Open Office Compete Leads, and develop a broad set of marketing skills and report to a management team committed to development and recognized for high WHI this is the position for you!”

Other time-honoured phrases of incomprehensible job descriptions: self-starter, self-motivated, team player as well as strongly independent, focussed, meets deadlines, builds an environment that supports cooperation and cohesiveness among the
work team… You don’t need to criticize this gibberish at the interview but rather cut through the gibberish and ask the interviewer what exactly all that means. This approach arms you with control over the interview.

Attitude, etc

Things like attitude are hard to quantify unless you go to the interview with a lit cigarette in your hand or stretch your legs on top of the desk or scoff at your interviewer’s questions. Only a very thin line separates confidence from arrogance. Confidence is answering a “silly” or “childish” question with a smile. Arrogance is “can we move on to the next topic already!”

Accept your faults and ignorance

You’ve heard this already but it’s worth repeating. Admitting that you don’t know or that you’re wrong is not a disqualifier. Making excuses or trying to cover up is. At worst, your ignorance and/or incorrect responses will not land that job but it’s better than coming out red-faced. In most cases, interviewers look for clues and demonstrable evidence of your competence, skills, and your approach to solving problems in the context of to the role you’ve applied for.

Ask Questions

Prepare a list of questions and take it with you to the interview. This is related to Do your homework mentioned above. It indicates well-preparedness and sends the message that you are genuinely interested in the role. Questions could be about anything, and there are stupid questions: asking a question about something that’s readily available on the company’s website qualifies as stupid. You’ll be able to think up intelligent and well-informed questions by looking at these sources: the job description, job descriptions put out by other companies for a similar role, the organization’s web site, your past and current experience in a similar role, and social media websites like LinkedIn.

That’s pretty much it.

Tags: Advice, Career, Interview Advice, Interviewing, Job Interviews, Tips for Interviewing

Google (GOOG) is finally making some changes to its new Buzz product in response to outrage about the product’s glaring privacy flaws.
But these changes don’t include the most obvious and important one: Making the whole thing opt-in and private by default.

As of now, Google’s algorithm just picks people out of your email box for you to follow and be followed by, regardless of whether they are friends, spouses, mistresses, stalkers, or enemies.

Worse, the list of your followers and followees is made public by default, so anyone can see it.

Put simply, Google just let the whole world peek into your email Inbox, without ever asking you if you wanted it to do that.

It’s pretty clear that Buzz is Google’s second desperate attempt to ram its way into the social media/networking largesse. The first was the disastrous Google Wave, which is already history. Between a week after its launch and now, the list of people on my contacts list (which btw is more than 300) who are online at any given time refuses to exceed 5.

And now, Buzz.

What’s visibly common between Wave and Buzz is the terrible amount of clutter on the interface. Too many things clamour for your attention at the same to the point that it can get a trifle overwhelming. This, from one of the first companies to make minimalist, intuitive, and usable interfaces. But both suffer from problems unqiue to them: the biggest trouble I faced using Google Wave: where or how do I get started? I mean, I knew it was an ultra-sophisticated, packed-with-features application but duh? With Buzz, the major irritant was the very Buzz link under Inbox.

Which brings us to a very common observation-cum-complaint millions of users have raised: Buzz is Google’s idea of competing with Twitter, unarguably the #1 social media platform today. The complaint though, is that Buzz is a rip off of Twitter sans the 140-character limit, and sans its respect for users’ privacy (this post brands Buzz as social manipulation).

Twitter achieved skyrocketing popularity with little or no effort on the part of the company that developed it while Buzz stormtrooped into our Gmail accounts, a “strategy” I call indecent. More directly, this is no different from the spammers who harvest email ids: Google simply imposed Buzz on its entire Gmail user base. And neither is Buzz stellar: it adds no value–integration with Twitter, Flickr, Picasa & tons of other popular social media sites is NOT value addition–and reflects what this piece terms as “engineering-focused mentality and arrogance.” Also, we can’t emphasize enough on the real privacy threats that Buzz brings with it: check this out for a pretty scary picture of what can go horribly wrong. And this.

In short, Google’s cluelessness in the social media space is starkly visible. And I’m not picking on Google: this cluelessness is fairly evident in every large technology corporation that’s dabbling in this space. But because Google is one of the so-in-your-face cash-rich companies aggressively pushing itself in social media and has so much to..er..”show,” I had to take it as an example.

If Google planned to replicate Gmail’s success: first, with the “invite-only” Wave accounts (seriously, who wants a Wave invite now?) and now with force-feeding us with Buzz, it has completely lost the plot. Here’s the thing: the social media “revolution (ugh!)” overtook the large corporations without their knowledge. It was too late when they woke up. To use a really ugly cliche, social media is about real people. It’s not a “product” or a business unit with a fancy acronym in a 50-billion dollar company. Twitter succeeded because of what’s known as “easy adoption.” People simply took to it. There’s really no mission or vision statement to platforms like Twitter or Facebook. The “missionary/visionary” kind of thinking happens in corporate boardrooms while real innovation happens when people are allowed to think independently: outside the confines of meeting rooms, which rarely happens in a large corporate set up. That or when people are passionate and desperate–when the concept/idea has the potential to wipe out their savings.

Good social media/networking platforms place control in the hands of real people. As someone who’s fairly active on Twitter, I’ve formed meaningful relationships with people I’ve never met in real life and probably won’t. Which is what a decent platform/tool should do: apart from the very basics–authentication, privacy, etc–it shouldn’t dictate what I must do. Google Buzz didn’t ask me if I was okay to view some dude who’s relentlessly spamming my Buzz timeline with his photography exploits. Or some kind lady who’s having a 40+ comments-heavy discussion about what to wear to her kids’ parents-teachers meet. Which also explains why people are outraged days after it was launched. And then there’s the whole “integrated approach,” which is immensely annoying– Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, Twitter… I don’t want friends of friends of friends of friends of someone on my Gmail contacts list to view my Flickr pictures. This kind of approach can partly be attributed to a linear, version-based, plugin-based approach to developing social media products. It’s like, “Okay, so we have Twitter and it’s already 2 years; let’s offer an upgrade, a Twitter 2.0.” The trouble is huge corporates, after some years are so thoroughly divorced from the actual users of their products that they have no idea what ticks (both on and off) people. Microsoft Word was an excellent Word processing tool when it debuted. Today, it’s a pseudo-publishing tool, a web page editor, a drawing/graphics application, XML editor, and a desktop blogging application.

In the end, as a perceptive friend (see postscript) observed, “social networks aren’t generic, they are about choice. Google is moving in the opposite direction.” Which is why giant, faceless corporations are still groping for that magic formula to garner the biggest slices of the social media pie for themselves. I’ll wind up by presenting a fairly common scenario. You’re stuck with a problem with your laptop and you call customer care. After you cross the robotic-IVR firewall and punch more buttons, you get a human voice with a name. A minute or so later, you know where it’s going: “according to our policies,” “please read the customer support agreement,” “someone will get in touch with you within 48 hours,” “I don’t have the authority to,” “we understand sir/ma’am, but…” “Oh! for that you must call…” And then you hang up. On a good social networking site, you simply post your issue/question. Real people will reply with astonishing speed, and they often have solutions to your problem.

This is where Google & co have lost the plot.

Postscript: Thanks to Stefanie (follow her: http://twitter.com/skarbach) for inspiring this post.

Tags: Facebook, Google Buzz, Google Wave, Innovation, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Networking Tools, Technology, Tools, Twitter

Our lips part to talk but stop and tremble;
Like baiting, half-blossomed flower-petals,
Speaking the tongue of the tender night-breeze–
Only we know what we entreat each other
In this everlasting silent night.

Tags: Original Poetry, Poem, Poetry, Writing

Oh yeah! Here goes.

Before we begin, the previous para is a very substandard illustration of a fancy technique of writing fiction: stream of consciousness, where you write down your thoughts as they occur. Now why am I saying this? In my rude guide, I wrote

…you primarily write to achieve technical and subject-matter accuracy and clarity. Your readers and/or reviewers’ primarily concern is whether you’ve achieved that and not so much for that wicked turn of phrase that you’ve introduced in the second para in the Overview of the Megaphone Connector for JDBC (Heading 1)…in other words, writing in this case, is subservient to technology/subject matter.

And now, back to the “much water has flowed” bit I just mentioned. Over the past month, I was witness to a fascinating discussion the details of which I shall spare you. It was a discussion centered around the (lack of) very basics of writing. Which is why I thought it’s time to re-examine the “writing in this case, is subservient to technology/subject matter” statement.

Problems in most human endeavours–I love it when I sound lofty–can be overcome if you abide by three factors:

1. Solid grounding in the fundamentals
2. Common sense
3. A penchant for not taking things literally

I know I’m sounding like I’m on a high horse talking down to ordinary mortals but indulge me, please. There! I said please. In all sincerity, let’s see how these factors apply in our context:

1. Solid grounding in the fundamentals of language/writing: I never tire of saying this: Technical Writing = Technical + Writing, where writing should be second nature to you. At the very least, writing mustn’t be an effort for you. If you plan to learn the parts of speech, articles, elementary sentence construction, and voices on the job, you’re probably considering a wrong career choice. Like I said, technical writing is not for everyone. Writing is not an optional skill for a technical writer.
2. Common sense: Cannot be defined although the dictionary says it is “exhibiting native good judgment (adj)” and “sound practical judgment (n).” Quite good but nobody can ever say what the judgment in question really is–it is entirely situational. Which is why the world abounds with helpful examples of what common sense is. I hate to do this to you but if you were given a lemon and presented with some choices would you rather squeeze it on your neighbour’s open wound or make lemonade or use it with Tequila (ha!)? Answer carefully. In much the same way, common sense dictates that if it takes you 37 steps to document a feature, you’d rather talk to your project team and simplify the interface. And because we’re talking about writing, common sense tells you that it’s a mistake to use figures of speech in a technical document: You cannot retrieve your files if you permanently empty the Recycle Bin just like trash once taken away by the garbage van cannot be recovered.
3. A penchant for not taking things literally: This is really a variation of #2 above. So when I say “much water has flowed,” you must not conjure mental images of water flowing underneath a bridge or something. The same thing applies for “I’m on on a high horse.” I’m a technical writer, not a jockey, for God’s sake. And so, when I say “writing in this case, is subservient to technology/subject matter” it doesn’t mean you take it literally: it just means that I assume that you possess above-average writing skills (ref:#1 above) when you call yourself a technical writer. If you call yourself a surgeon, remember that at the least I don’t expect you to use a butcher’s knife for performing surgery on me.

Actually this entire post is an exercise in stating the obvious but I suppose I haven’t stated it in vain.

Tags: Advice, Basics, Commonsense, Documentation, Language, Random Stuff, Tech Writing, Technical Writing, Writers, Writing

Technical Writing is largely a thankless job. Nobody really reads the document that you took six months to write but when they read, the results can sometimes be as devastating as the loss of your job because of all things, they had to look at that sentence on page 243, which contained an erroneous instruction, which in turn screwed their entire HRMS system. Okay, I’m exaggerating but you get the point: you do you’re unnoticed but you don’t and you’re dead. The money might be good but there’s precious little to motivate you to stick to technical writing as a lifelong career.

And so let me offer some sanctimonious advice: don’t take a technical writing job if you don’t enjoy it. If you’re planning a career in technical writing, make sure you do lots of research. If you think you can become a technical writer because you love writing and/or you write well, think again. Or if you do jump in recklessly–which is good in some cases–test the waters for a couple of years, but get out the moment you begin to realize that for a week or slightly longer, you’ve been spending your nights weeping softly into your pillow with the certainty that you’ve to wet your pillow with your tears the following night. And don’t look at your peers in the same company or industry with acid-filled eyes and envious wonderment at how they seem to enjoy it so thoroughly and earn so much (yes!).

What is technical writing

At the very basics, you’re on your way to technical writing superstardom if you possess and sustain these qualities:

• A sense of explorative curiosity that prompts you to investigate how something works. You are compelled to figure out how it works by dismantling and reassembling it if required. You might necessarily not know–or are not interested in–how to actually build it, and that’s perfectly fine.
• A passion to explain this to other people–orally…well, verbally, or in writing.

In a way, a technical writer is like a teacher who doesn’t lecture to a class but disseminates his/her lectures in the written form. For our purposes, we’ll restrict this “something” to technology/software.

It’s actually quite easy to proclaim your “passion for technology” as loudly as possible but look what happens when that translates into a job routine. You need to be constantly abreast of whatever technology you’re in and learn how it is actually applied. What this means is endless reading of complex technical documents. Remember, you’re writing to make others understand. If your own understanding is less than near-perfect, chances are you’ll be hit by that page 243 bomb.

It’s also equally easy to proclaim your “lifelong love affair with writing” and your “exquisite felicity with the written word” but here’s the thing: you primarily write to achieve technical and subject-matter accuracy and clarity. Your readers and/or reviewers’ primarily concern is whether you’ve achieved that and not so much for that wicked turn of phrase that you’ve introduced in the second para in the Overview of the Megaphone Connector for JDBC (Heading 1).

In other words, writing in this case, is subservient to technology/subject matter. The more firmly this is embedded in your consciousness, the less you will crib about or feel distraught at the lack of respect/recognition/appreciation for your amazing literary acrobatics. However, this is not to argue in favour of below-average writing skills. Make sure you have adequate command over your noun/number agreement, subject-object relationships, dangling modifiers, split infinitives, and the rest. Here’s a small trick that usually works: if you think your sentence doesn’t sound right, it probably isn’t. Read it aloud and check how it sounds. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can fix it.

If you are an aspiring technical writer and if all of this sounds sufficiently threatening/boring/intimidating, stop reading now, and if you’re a technical writer who already hates his/her job, look for a different career.

If you want to read, on, here’s the instant-coffee guide to becoming a successful technical writer:

• Be very unafraid of the monotonous drudgery of reading specifications, technical documents, talking to people, fiddling with the product, writing, editing, and writing again.
• Your writing skills can be improved. The Internet is your best friend and I don’t believe in spoonfeeding.
• Prepare. Look at what your competitor has done with a similar product. Read that product’s literature. Play with it if it’s available to you. See how you can apply that knowledge to your own work.
• Read a lot outside your work or domain. You’ll be surprised what all you’ll learn.
• Do your homework before approaching your SME or engineer. Ask questions that make them think. This is the only way to earn respect.
• Approach documentation from a problem-solving perspective. It helps to recall how you solved a complex quadratic equation back in school or college.
• Have a sense of humour. Accept criticism with grace. If your document is erroneous, it’s not because you are inherently evil.
• Observe, and learn how the really good technical writers approach a task or problem. It’s really okay to imitate them–that’s how you learned how to speak in the first place.
• Write. Write. Write. Practice is still the key.

What technical writing is not

• A shortcut for a development/QA or whatever other position, which demands a different skillset.
• A “hobby” or something you do because you’re bored at home.
• Merely documenting procedures is NOT technical writing. Print this line and paste it at your desk or home or car or whatever other place so that you’re constantly reminded of it.
• Process adherence might get you a beer and biryani dinner from your QA/SQM team but your reader will still look for accuracy.
• Ditto for fonts and styles and style guides and templates and XML and DITA and the rest. These are mere aids. A crutch is not a substitute for walking.
• Going through salary surveys is only bound to produce lots of bile.

Like any profession or career, you need to invest the required amount of hard work and seriousness that technical writing demands. Technical writing is thankless. Your only reward is that unexplainable, relaxing satisfaction that you derive after a hearty meal or a good bout between the sheets. It’s not for everyone.

Technorati : Advice, Career, Technical Writer, Technical Writing, Writing
Del.icio.us : Advice, Career, Technical Writer, Technical Writing, Writing

Keeping the Past Alive is Rewarding

Have you ever-even for just one second-paused to actually trace the origins of the words-any word-you use in your writing or speaking life? Try it. It’s fun, instructive, and interesting.

If the previous paragraph has convinced you to trace the origins of words, congratulate me because I now successfully qualify for a membership in the (U.S) Democratic Party. I’ve now become a Democrat. The connection between the previous paragraph and my becoming a Democrat will be clear in a moment. At the time of the American Revolution, the word Democrat had the pejorative meaning that we associate with the word Demagogue today-”a politician, leader or person who panders to emotions and/or prejudice”. In just over 100 years, the word Democrat had shifted so much in meaning that it is now the name of one of the only two American political parties. But look at what has happened to Democrat’s “parent” word, Demagogue. It now means the opposite of what it originally meant: a popular leader.

If the previous paragraph has confused you, re-read it.

Now what has happened in both cases is a gradual change in the original meaning of the word. Technically, the study of such changes in the meaning-or evolution -of words over time, across cultures and geographies is known as Semantics.

But there’s another, more fundamental aspect to changes in the meaning of words. It is the origin of words, the root cause, or the culprit. In our example, the word Demagogue originates from the Greek demagogos, which means leader (demos) of the people (agogos). And the study of word origins is technically known as Etymology.

As writers, it pays to develop a healthy curiosity about the etymology of the words we use everyday. The “benefits” might not translate into a pay hike or promotion but it’ll help us become better writers eventually. A brief list of words we use in routine technical writing parlance hopefully spurs thinking in this direction.

Today, we typically use the word manual in the context of a written document (User Manual). This word was imported into English from the French word manual which, in turn, has its roots in the Latin manualis, meaning “fitted to the hand.” The root of manualis itself is derived from the Greek manus, which means “hand; strength; power over; armed force; handwriting.” These meanings have an echo even today in usages such as “manual labour” and “the user has to populate the fields manually (bah!).” In 1431, manual was used to mean “a service (Church ritual) book used by a priest.” Around 1533, this restricted definition transformed itself to mean “a concise handbook of any sort.” And viola! We have today the User manual, the Manual of Arms (military), a manual of mathematical tables, and so on.

While we’re talking about user manuals, let’s briefly dwell upon navigation. In very simple terms, to navigate is to find our way around something. Interestingly, the verb navigate came later than the noun navigation. This word has seen little change in meaning ever since it was first used in 1533, derived from the Latin navigationem, which means “to sail; sail over; go by sea; steer a ship.” Navigationem is itself derived from Navis meaning “ship.” Although the original meaning is still in vogue, navigation is used today in the sense of “finding or helping find something-a place, an object, a direction, or information.”

From navigation to navigation aids (no, not the acronym). More specifically: Index and Glossary.

The lexicon seems to be quite fond of Index,notperhaps because the lexicon is itself an index of sorts but because Index yields a huge heap of meanings. For our purposes, it is simply a navigation aid, an alphabetical listing of words accompanied by page numbers. And it is 611 years old with roots in the Latin Indicis, meaning “forefinger; pointer; sign; list.” Does the word Index Finger sound familiar? However, it is also derived from Indicare, which, literally, means “point out.” The word Indicate has its roots here. Sometime in 1580, English incorporated Latin phrases such as Index Nominum and Index expurgatorius to roughly give Index its current meaning. Index Nominum literally means an “Index of Names” while Index expurgatorius has a slightly tyrannical connotation. It literally means “specification of passages to be deleted from works otherwise permitted.” Post 1720, the usage of Index branched off in a hundred directions to variously mean “compile an index (of terms/words), refractive index, economic index,” and so on. For our purposes, we’ll simply to stick to generating Indexes for the documents we produce.

Sadly, the history of Glossary isn’t as colourful. For the most part it retains its original meaning from the Greek derivative, glossarion, which means “obsolete or foreign word.” Around 1400, the Latin gl?ssarium made its appearance in English to mean, “a difficult word requiring explanation.” Glossary was originally used in the plural as glossaries, and alternatively defined as a “collection of textual glosses.” Interestingly, the word glosses is itself derived from the (Middle High) German, glosen meaning “glow, or shine.” This has resonance in the modern usage of the lip gloss, a beauty aid. But it remains that glossary, which today means “a list of terms in a special subject, field, or area of usage, with accompanying definitions” hasn’t deviated much from its original usage.

I should’ve started this piece with this word but I chose to keep the best for the last. While a lot of words are rooted in antiquity, some are deleted forever, some fall to disuse, some are revived from disuse, and others still, are rescued from extinction. Interface is a good example of the last phenomenon.

Interface is derived by combining the prefix, Inter, with Face. It is a fairly “modern” word in some sense because it was coined around 1880-1885. It originally meant “a surface forming a common boundary, as between bodies or regions.” This word lay dormant for several decades until in the 1960s, the computer industry suddenly resuscitated it with the same sense of usage. Within the computer industry, interface generally means “a point of interaction between a computer and another system-like a printer or similar device.” However, its usage became pervasive quite rapidly and pretty soon, acquired newer usages. For instance, it is acceptable to use interface in the sense of denoting interaction between departments in a company or between areas of study: “we need to improve the interface between the documentation team and the HR team.” However, using interface as a verb is generally frowned upon because you have better substitutes in interact, deal, work, or cooperate. Whatever the usage debate, it’s clear that the world of words owes immense thanks to the computing world for rescuing this word from complete oblivion.

You obviously don’t expect me to write an Etymology dictionary here-two such comprehensive (searchable) dictionaries already exist online if you are interested: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php and http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/etymology. If you are a steadfast devotee of the printed material like me, I highly recommend the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, or the “lite” Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology.

In the end, Etymology is tremendously rewarding not merely because it’s akin to a journey in history, or an enjoyable hobby but because its real value lies in the range of possibilities it offers us in the world of usage. It instructs us without preaching. It helps us to both break the lazy habit of using words frivolously–like cycling or swimming, you can never “forget” it once you’ve learnt it–and to become more effective writers.

If you are unconvinced still, check out the origins of bless, document, web, content, and search.

Technorati : English, Etymology, Language, Origins of Words, STC India, Words, Writing
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Rebirth

Inside, the swirling wind swishes continuously
swooshing over my shut stony tomb
not powerful to slide its slab though
stiff enough to arouse the stirrings
of disturbance inside the confined hole.
Dark and bottomless, but I can’t see–
I’m stirring and trying to turn,
I wind my neck tight and kick,
a whiff unbeknown escapes in a gush,
a sudden dazzle greets the eyes I open and quickly close,
a rumble that begins in my belly becomes
a wail, and a shrill shriek—
multiple, painful simultaneous experiences like
gigantic waves that lash helpless pebbles who
gladly die this second in secure knowledge of
their rebirth in the next.

Tags: Original Poetry, Poem, Poetry, Rebirth

So ladies and gentlemen, presenting Twexicon.

TWEXICON

1. Twitter (N): Online Micro blogging service to send and view second-by-second status updates, almost instantaneous updates from the entire Connected World.
2. Tweet [pronounced Tw-E-t] (N): A Twitter Message; (v) to send a Twitter message
3. Tweeter (N): A person who tweets, a Twitter user.
4. Tweeting (N): The act of sending a Tweet or Twitter message
5. Tweeple (N): People on Twitter
6. Follow (V): To follow someone’s updates on Twitter
7. Unfollow (V): To stop following someone’s updates on Twitter
8. Twiddle (V): To fiddle with Twitter; no SOP exists but activities range from banging your head trying to think of an intelligent message to Tweet (as opposed to “Gawd, I’m late to work!” or “My cat is puking”), or trying to decide whether to delete your Twitter account or no. Twiddling is limited only by your imagination.
9. Twiverse/Twpoem (N, V): Verses limited to 140 characters or less, the act of writing such verses.
10. Twoiletry (N): Your Twitter-enabled device that lets you Tweet from the loo.
11. Twral (V): To bait someone on Twitter.
12. Twralling (N): The act of baiting someone on Twitter.
13. Tweetus Interruptus (N): Act of interrupting somebody when he/she is in the middle of typing a Tweet.
14. Premature Twijaculation (N): Tweet incomplete because the Tweeter ran out of the alloted 140 characters.
15. Twit (N): Witty Tweet

Leave a comment and I’ll update Twexicon.

Tags: Blogging, Blogs, Microblogging, Microblogs, Technology, Tweet, Twexicon, Twitter, Twitter Dictionary