plug-in

[Victor Steinbok]

  That's a fair assessment and thanks for looking it up. Clearly
"plug-in" is used for things other than just software (consider, for
example, the most recent trademark use of "plug-in"--well, technically,
"plugins"). And the software metaphor was likely derived from hardware.
Compare, for example, to "plug-and-play". As I wrote initially, I was
never sure about the origin of the goof-up and was not committed to the
"lost in translation" explanation--it's just that it would have been one
of the easiest to imagine.

     VS-)

On 9/4/2010 4:14 PM, imwitty wrote:
> Dear Victor,
>
>
>
> As far as I know, the term "plug-in" is normally used to define some
> additional piece of the *software* designed to provide extra function(s) not
> existent in the original/main software product.
>
>
>
> After checking all links in the article you mentioned in your message, I
> found the original text of the Toshiba recall, which doesn't use the
> "plug-in" while correctly describing all details of the issue:
> http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/bulletin.jsp?ct=3DSB&so=
> id=3D2761378&ref=3DEV
>
>
>
> The term "plug-in" appears on the press-release of the U.S. Consumer Product
> Safety Commission at
> http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml10/10330.htmlin the =93Hazard=94
> description line.
>
>
>
> So it is obviously not  a "lost in translation"/"Japanization" case but
> rather the result of "creativity" AND a lack of the computer terminology knowledge in the office of some native English-speaking bureaucrat and/or
> his assistant who "cooked" that press release.
>
>
>   Lora
>
>

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