Won't fixing the problem

[Chris F Waigl]

Karl Hagen wrote:
> Among some communities of software developers "won't fix" appears to
> have become a dephrasal compound verb.
>
> For example: "If you are dealing with very old issues, you're right that
> asking the original submitter to confirm the bug is unlikely to be
> fruitful. However, closing or won't fixing the bug does not add value by
> itself: a status change is not warranted unless you have specifically
> confirmed or denied the bug."
>
> The use derives from the way issue tracking software works. A developer
> can set a reported bug to a status of "won't fix."
>
>

... and thus "won't fix" becomes a technical term. In my day job, I
frequently "resolve issues", which most of the time implies the actual
solving of problems, but does not mean the same thing.  An issue in this
sense is a problem that is tracked and referenced, and "resolving" means
setting the status to "resolved". (The other day, when substituting as
the leader of a technical meeting for a colleague, I caught myself
echoing one of his own cliches: "... so I'm resolving this out of here
then".)

> More examples of inflected forms of the compound here:
> http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=node/190
>
> What strikes me as odd about this use is that it's the only compound
> verb (dephrasal or not) that I can recall seeing formed from an Aux+V
> combination.
>

There is "do not resuscitate", mostly just as a modifier, but in the
shortened form DNR frequent as a verb and noun.

Chris Waigl

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org