| Date: | June 19, 2018 / year-entry #141 |
| Tags: | microspeak;other |
| Orig Link: | https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180619-00/?p=99045 |
| Comments: | 10 |
| Summary: | Configuration settings, basically. |
Recall that Microspeak is not merely for jargon exclusive to Microsoft, but also for jargon that you need to know because nobody will explain it to you. Here are some citations.
In informal discussion, knobs are things that allow you to configure something. The term is a throwback to old-timey control panels with lots of dials and things to play with.
Sometimes you'll see knobs paired with levers for extra old-timey goodness. |
Comments (10)
Comments are closed. |
This word has an unfortunate secondary meaning in the UK & Ireland, which renders its use in a workplace setting awkward.
It has the same secondary meaning in America too, but mostly has a personal insult in place of other euphemisms for male anatomy.
That’s because you don’t have a former White House intern whose last name you can use to mean the same thing.
I have a similar experience talking about the cryptographic concept of a “number used once”.
Yes, that is an unfortunate word.
Heh.
I’ve always heard Windows setting controls referred to as knobs, but it’s pretty neat to know that it’s also internal terminology at MS.
related word ‘knobage’ – the degree to which a system exposes knobs. “There an awful lot of knobage there”, “Can we trim the knobage please”,
There was a column by P.J. Plauger long ago called something like “The Knob on the Back of the Set”, using “knob” in a slightly different sense: the place where a programming language didn’t do quite what you wanted out of the box, and needed fiddling, as with old TV sets.
A variation on this would be “nerd knobs” for those knobs that are for the more advanced user.
Used frequently around here such as describing software without any adjustments available, where you just have to live with it as-is – “no knobs to twiddle”