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Comment by seiji | Hacker News Reader

Do companies ever release linguistic guidelines?

Do you have "a facebook?" A facebook page? A facebook account? A facebook profile?

People don't "friend my facebook" they "friend me on facebook," so is it "a me on facebook?"

Twitter? Twitter page? Twitter account? Twitter profile? "Check out my twitter," but do people say "I have a twitter?"

GitHub? Do people say "I have a github?" Check out my github? Check out my github account? Follow me on github? Follow my github account?

Didn't all this start with myspace? Is it a my myspace or a myspace? Do you have a myspace or a myspace page or a my myspace page?

Is every sentence in this post a question? Isn't it exhausting?

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> Do companies ever release linguistic guidelines?

Adobe does with Photoshop and others.[1]

[1] http://www.adobe.com/legal/permissions/trademarks.html#photo...

It annoys me to no end when people say they have "a Facebook," but I often wonder if I'm the one that isn't with the times...

Nope, you aren't. Saying "a Facebook" is just stupid. I mean, if these guys have their own Facebooks you have to wonder why they need grant money, right?

They also repeat the "computer is isolating" nonsense. A friend got to see his daughter take her first steps while he was in Afghanistan. Yep, really "isolating".

I understand where you're coming from, but saying "a facebook" is not stupid, it's just efficient communication. Does saying "a facebook profile" convey any more bits of information to the average message recipient? IMO, to the average person, that would sound as stupid as "can I borrow a pencil with graphite from you?" It's unnecessarily descriptive.

"Pencil with graphite" is redundant. "Facebook" and "Facebook account" are two entirely different things. You don't say "I have a Bank of America" do you?

If efficiency is that important, say "I'm on Facebook" or "I'm not on Facebook". One fewer syllable than "I have a Facebook".

I have a Facebook (account).

It's a testament to their lack of product diversity. No one would say "My Microsoft" or "My Google" or "My Valve" or "My Betty Crocker" because those companies have many credible products. "My Facebook" means "My Facebook account" because the whole company is nothing but a message board.

For serious products, this isn't the case. You might say "My Ford", and everyone would know you're talking about a car, but a car is considerably more significant than a username/password to a message board.

Same problem: I used to work with people who would say "Can you send it to me in Adobe?" or "Do you have Adobe installed?" to mean PDF or Adobe Acrobat.

Adobe still had a dozen products back then, but they had one "consumer" product and the rest were for pros or creatives.

I'd send them a .psd and then act surprised when they couldn't open it.

A friend who did Tech Support Hell while he was in college used to get irked at "my Internet don't (sic) work".

Google has more than one product, but one of their products is nevertheless called Google (the one that's at "google.com"; the referent of the verb "google"; etc.). Internally/formally it may be called "Search" but I dare say most of it's users call it "Google" (they might say "I did a Google search" but not "I used Google Search").

That's different. People may say it's "on Google", or "I used Google", but they don't say "I have a Google".

Now wonder how disorienting it is to work at one of those companies. I believe Amazon gets around this by liberally using the phrase "retail website" to refer to what the rest of the world just calls "Amazon".

Lego tries to get people to call it's toys "Lego bricks" rather than "Legos" but I think this has not really been successful.

People who are legitimate Lego experts know better than to call them "Legos". These guys are being touted as Tech Gods who Have Something Important To Say To Their Generation.

While it may be a little bothersome to hear a random person call them "Legos", it's not the same as hearing a self-proclaimed expert call them that.

There are legitimate Lego experts? Also, I don't think I've met a single human being in person who doesn't call them Legos.

I'm British and until American TV I'd never heard anyone call them 'Legos'

Lego does that on the advice of their trademark lawyers, because nouns can't be trademarked.

Outside the Americas, you'll get a whole load of funny looks when you call them legos. It's like pointing out a field of sheeps.

> Do companies ever release linguistic guidelines?

Yes, sometimes, and people ignore them. So: rarely. And they shouldn't. New language isn't prescribed with any effectiveness. And what you were taught in school is based on analysis (a bad one at that.)

Mostly, they do it for branding and legal reasons. Particularly for trademarks, which can be lost if they become too generic. So they spend a lot of money to spread the word that it's Kleenex brand tissue and a Google search, just in case it will help.

Don't you love when games get "released on PC"?

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