Geek Drivel

English is a very curious language. When talking about software, for instance, you have first-party programs (programs that are written by the same company that developed the computer or operating system that they’re run on) and third-party programs (programs written by other companies). Where are the second-party programs? For that matter, who would “the second party” refer to?

I presume this has something to do with the literary terms of first-person point of view (”I”) versus the third-person (”they”). The second-person point of view (”you”) exists, but it is hardly ever used.

This just goes to show that English wasn’t designed by a software developer. A developer would always put the most-used options first, rather than sticking a seldom-used one between the two most-often-used ones.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Amusing, Interesting, or Appalling, Language. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.