Déformation professionnelle | Hacker News Reader

Déformation professionnelle

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44 points_pius27 comments

I speak french and I can say that it's a very common expression. It is often used in a funny way. Like if a receptionist answers the phone saying the name of the company (like she does all day) even though she's home. She will probably say "déformation professionnelle".

We also use it to apologize when being rude without meaning it.

Example :

you make a remark without really thinking of it because of your professional habits (ex: you should be doing things that way, or going straight to limit-cases or counter-examples) that would made sense in a professional context, but that is not acceptable outside.

You would apologize saying "I am sorry, it is a déformation professionelle"

I don't know if this counts: After a really long stretch of coding, I once tried to drag the mouse pointer to click a physical button, CD eject button on desktop tower, and was confused that it didn't work. In my defense, the tower was right next to the monitor. My friend teases me about that to this day.

By the way, have any of you thought that talking to someone is interacting with their repl?

Cool I'm not the only one who did that before... Thanks from my ego

After years of using mostly a laptop, I had to work on a crowded desk, with only a keyboard. After a few minutes of coding I wanted to point at sth, so I started to fondle the desk in front of the keyboard in a desperate attempt to use the non-existent touchpad. After the 5th time I realized what I was doing and said to myself "profesionalna deformacia".

there was a mouse, but not enough horizontal space

I had a bad case of this when I told someone I'd like to spend 0.5 person-days hanging out with them. Yup, I'm an engineer. Planning got to my head.

Thanks, I didn't know this had a name. I've definitely had this from playing Tetris, but also from board games like Go and even jigsaw puzzles. I thought it was just a quirk of my silly brain.

As a frenchman, I use it from time to time. However I never heard it in the US, is this saying somewhat known/used ?

I'm from the United States and I'd never heard of it in my life until this morning. :)

As an American with French heritage, I sometimes long for some of the fluid eloquence that French expressions provide. Alas, we are mostly left to use Americanism's like, "My bad."

'My bad' may have come to the US via basketball player Manute Bol, from the Sudan, whose native language is Dinka. (Though, 'my bad' could mainly be an artifact of broken English.) See:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002693.h...

Takeaway : Think twice before you date a hardworking urologist.

Can someone spell this out phonetically in English? I'm just learning French. :)

I speak french, but I wouldn't know how to spell it phonetically in english.

However this text to speech site pronounces it very well:

http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo...

This is off-topic, but... I wonder if you could verify for me whether the "French-Alice" voice on that site pronounces this name correctly (please):

Antoine de Saint Exupéry

I've always been curious how it's said, but whenever I run into native french speakers, I forget to ask. I found that site a while back, but I can't judge how accurate it is. Many thanks!

Oh I saw your question only today.

Alice's pronunciation is correct, but I say the name slightly difference. She pronunces 'Ex' like ecks, while I say eggs.

dayformaseeyon professseeyonel

That looks right. It's worth noting that the "a" sound in the first word is pronounced like the vowel in the word "spa" rather than the vowel in "mass" or "maim".

In Spanish is also a common expression (at least among some professionals)

It is very common in Italian too ("Deformazione professionale").

In German, it's "sickness" (Berufskrankheit).

Unless I see a convincing citation, I strongly doubt this expression is originally french. As said in other comments, equivalent expressions exist in Spanish, Italian or German, where they are frequently used.

Conversely, I find interesting that very common expressions in the english language, like "procrastination", are almost unknown in Europe (saved the UK and IE). Spanish, for example, has the perfectly correct term "procrastinación", but it's very seldom used.

Can we agree on the notion, that suffering from déformation professionelle is generally a bad thing?

No. Someone whose job requires them to plan ahead and think rationally might end up carrying those traits over to private life.

It can be used pejoratively, but plenty of jobs require some very desirable characteristics. Someone who goes into sales and ends up being cheery and outgoing wouldn't be a disaster.

Cool! Another French word to overuse!

you mean like the french version of your alias? ;)

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