wwh's recent post on "karez" reminded me that i've been meaning to ask about "warez"...does the OED list it yet? what's the earliest citation? i've always pronounced it WARE-ezz, but since it comes from "wares" i suppose it's probably supposed to be pronounced the same (right?).
incidentally, atomica offers a delightfully comprehensive list of -wares:
By the way, what do abandonware, betaware, bloatware, censorware, crippleware, crudware (!), dribbleware, evolware, grayware, guiltware, hookemware (!), malware, middleware, and nagware mean?
I can take a stab at the other ones on the list, but those gleaned above from gymkhana's atomica are puzzling.
these 'wares' all look to be software jargon, and there is another word from that idiom which applies to "cracked" software, that being 'warez' (pronounced weirz) -- although why one would expect that to show up anywhere outside of a jargon dictionary is unknown to me.
although why one would expect that to show up anywhere outside of a jargon dictionary is unknown to me.
does this mean it's not in the OED yet? at what point does a word lose the "jargon" label and be deemed worthy of mainstream dictionaries? warez is certainly known to any reasonably savvy internet user, and that accounts for a rapidly increasing portion of the general population. i remember some hazy guidelines offered by Wendelyn Nichols (was that her name?) in an AWAD chat last year that specified a certain length of time that the word has to survive before it's considered a word, and it also has to come from varied sources (do varied 'net sources count?). anyone have any more specific guidelines to share?
in general, the general guideline for inclusion in any general dictionary is that the word must be in general use; that is, in common use in the public press and ordinary speech in both informal and reserved styles (such as those used in business) as distinguised from specialized lexicons such as those used in law, medicine, computer science, etc.
I don't think warez qualifies, as it is still pretty much limited to use by software pirates and understood by hackers.
let's take an informal poll regarding warez: [ ] I have used the word [ ] I've encountered the word and know what it means [ ] I never heard of it before this thread
basicly, open up the character map (run: charmap) select the character, and either copy and paste, or note the character set number, and type it in Alt key + the 168 key = ż in my default font... other numbers, other characters.. (i made a random selection) Note that if you use the Alt + method, you must use the keypad numbers, not the ones above the qwerty row. and if there is a zero as first character, it matters ALt+0168=¨.
note the character set number, and type it in Alt key + character set number.
Or you can enter &#nnnn; where nnnn is the character set number, leading zeroes not needed. of troy's ż is 0191 in the ALT key technique or ¿ in the &# technique.
Anyone wishing a complete list of these codes may PM me. I'll respond as quickly as I can.
let's take an informal poll regarding warez: [ ] I have used the word [X] I've encountered the word often and know what it means [ ] I never heard of it before this thread
I have used the word often, scarcely a week goes by without my doing so.
And how do *you pronounce it, max? before i adopt the pronunciation that tsuwm offered, i want to make sure it's not like a minnesotan thang or somfin. and speaking of which, where's dagny been lately?
and jim, do you really think your AWAD informal poll is fair sampling of "savvy internet users"? with a few obvious exceptions, i don't tend to think of most AWADers as being avid surfers of other sites.
now i'm curious... perhaps another informal poll?
~~~~~~~~~ How much time, proportional to AWAD, do you spend surfing other web sites?
[ ] i spend most of my web time at sites other than AWAD
[ ] i spend about half of my web time at other sites
[ ] i spend almost all of my web time at AWAD. i think google, zdnet and straightdope are most likely Pfizer products.
[ ] i spend my entire life at AWAD. i have my meals delivered to my desk and have had a combination swivel chair/toilet installed at my workstation.
>and jim, do you really think your AWAD informal poll is fair sampling of "savvy internet users"?
so i'm guessing now that you agree that 'warez' is rather specialized jargon....
p.s. - I consider myself to be a somewhat hemidemisemisavvy internet user (in addition to being a word-freak), and I'd never heard of the word before this thread.
Having once been an avid player of online computer games, [ ] I've encountered the word but only had a vague understanding of the definition and didn't know the pronounciation.
I now spend about half my time here. The other half is sites about news, science and dare I say it . . . Survivor.
Vapourware is one of Bill Gates' best standbys when it comes to clobbering the opposition without spending a cent. When a software firm announces that it is going to develop a product, say a new spreadsheet, Mrs Gates' little boy Billy announces that MS is also going to produce a similar product, and that it will be released sooner, and that it will be more closely aligned to M$ Windoze. Then it never gets developed, but has effectively killed the product announced by the original firm stone dead.
This is known in the trade as "pre-emptive vapour strike".
[ ] I have used the word [ ] I've encountered the word and know what it means [x] I never heard of it before this thread
As for the other poll:
How much time, proportional to AWAD, do you spend surfing other web sites?
[ ] i spend most of my web time at sites other than AWAD
[x] i spend about half of my web time at other sites
[ ] i spend almost all of my web time at AWAD. i think google, zdnet and straightdope are most likely Pfizer products. I don't think this could be true of anyone who did actually spend most of their web time at AWAD. Google and straightdope get pretty good exposure here. Must admit I've never heard of zdnet. [x] i spend my entire life at AWAD. i have my meals delivered to my desk and have had a combination swivel chair/toilet installed at my workstation.
I vary between the two I've marked depending on how fast/slow the connection to AWAD is being and how busy the site's being.
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