User Virtualization Emerges As Tonic For Nagging IT Headaches

[Wilson Gray]

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000405.html

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:59 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: User Virtualization Emerges As Tonic For Nagging IT Headaches
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Victor Steinbok wrote:
>>
>> Here's a particularly egregious instance of "words for snow"--and one
>> trying to escape attention by using "the Sami people of Scandinavia".
>
> The claim that the Sami people "do have hundreds of words for snow" is
> contained in a Wikipedia article about "Eskimo words for snow" (on
> January 5, 2012).
>
> This Wikipedia article discusses the number of words for snow in
> languages in the Inuit language group. However, it treats this as a
> distinct question. The article cites a Language Log post by Geoffrey
> K. Pullum about this question.
>
> This post is not a claim about the accuracy of the Wikipedia article.
> It is useful to know what the "hive-mind" is synthesizing on this
> topic I think.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> The "Eskimo words for snow" claim is a widespread misconception
> alleging that Eskimos have an unusually large number of words for
> snow. In fact, the Eskimo泡leut languages have about the same number
> of distinct word roots referring to snow as English does.[1][2] In
> contrast, the European Sami People, an indigenous circumpolar group,
> do have hundreds of words for snow.[3][4][5]
> [End excerpt]
>
> [Continuation of Victor's post]
>> http://goo.gl/rdp6u
>>> The Sami people of Scandinavia are said to have hundreds of different
>>> words for snow. The technology known broadly as user virtualization
>>> doesn't have nearly this many, but its growing importance in IT
>>> industry circles has spawned a number of alternate descriptions, such
>>> as 'workspace management', 'persistent personalization' and 'profile
>>> management'.
>>> However it's defined, there's no question that user virtualization
>>> solves difficult problems for IT departments. Its central purpose is
>>> managing an individual's data, personal files and applications as a
>>> distinct layer that's separate from the hardware, operating system and
>>> application layers.
>>
>> Â  Â  VS-)
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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