John Barry's witty book covers territory well-known to those of us working with words in high-tech. We sit daily with our red pens or editing programs and hack our way through the latest trendy meaningless computer terms, acronyms that change their definitions with each new document, nouns that gracelessly become verbs, and other unspeakable verbal horrors of the "information age." I myself have had to fight authors over their right to have a company "trial" a software package or "architect" a new middleware. Systems were once "user-friendly"; they are still that, but now they are "easily implemented and deployed" (in a quasi-military fashion) as well. Things may change, but the hazy jargon efficiently keeps apace.

Nor are those outside of high-tech immune to the barrage of what Barry calls "technobabble." The jargon has infected everyone's language and social intercourse. People totally uninvolved with computers will talk of "interfacing" with you or of "getting some input" on a question. Our old friend "user-friendly" has become a commonplace in describing all manner of things: toasters, TVs, cars, and -- how quaint -- books.

Every profession or craft has a right to its own jargon. Dentists talk about "amalgams," engineers go on about "stresses," and photographers exchange terms like "painterly" and "depth of field." But the special language of the computing professions -- because of a mix of marketing, public relations, magazines, advertising, journalists, consumer computer use, TV, and of course the Internet -- has expanded pervasively into the public arena like no other. Computers (and their cousins, microprocessors) are with us every day -- in the office, at home, in our briefcases and backpacks -- as is all the hype about them. (Buildings, for example, are also with us constantly, but we are not inundated with architectural geek speak.)

The precursor of technobabble was psychobabble. As described in R. D. Rosen's amusing and incisive 1977 book Psychobabble, pop psychology terms began making their way into the English language in the 1960s and 1970s. People were "working on relationships"; you were asked "to give me some space"; you were told to "work through your anger." (Just as Dilbert chronicles technobabble in our time, so the cartoons of Jules Feiffer and in The New Yorker kept track of psychobabble two and three decades ago.) Psychobabble is still with us, though we hardly notice, but technobabble has become the buzzword generator of today.

John A. Barry is well equipped to write this book. He has been working in the computer field since the late 1970s While at InfoWorld magazine, in the early 1980s, he started a column called "computer Illiteracy," in which he first explored the characteristics and consequences of technobabble. Later, at Sun Microsystems, he continued writing on the subject.

Technobabble is a serious book, but because of the absurd examples Barry quotes, you will find it an amusing romp through the never-never land of Silicon Valley and Route 128. It's hard to keep a straight face when reading the following oh-so-familiar scenario:

"Major product introductions, to large groups of people, are often forums for the rollout of 'technoneologisms' or the perpetuation of existing ones. When Apple, for example, introduced the Macintosh in early 1984, Apple executives Steve Jobs and John Sculley tossed off such terms as 'radical ease of use,' 'power curve,' and 'knowledge worker."

Later, in a section called "Logorrhea," Barry quotes the following 66-word sentence from Plexus Computers:

"In a move that will add a rich base of applications packages to its UNIX-based line of commercial business computer systems, Plexus Computers, Inc., a leading manufacturer of 16- and 32-bit microcomputers, today announced agreements with three software manufacturers to distribute 'bridge software' products that allow Plexus users to run software written for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC®), Wang, and Basic Four minicomputer systems."

Sound familiar?

Barry shows how this language evolved (or devolved) with the growth of computing. Besides being a history of this particular corner of our language, his book is a fascinating history of the industry. With each new turn in the computing industry, the English language acquired a new array of acronyms, words ending in -based and -ized, neologisms, verbs turned into nouns, and nouns turned into verbs. Barry also entertains us with sections on the traditional wretchedness of computer manuals and on how computer companies are named.

Besides being vastly entertaining, Technobabble is detailed enough to be a good reference book. It has a very useful glossary and bibliography as well. Fortunately, though it was published in 1991, with a paperback edition in 1993, it is still in print. Technobabble belongs on every knowledge worker's bookshelf.

Technobabble by John A. Barry can be ordered from MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, (800) 356-0343 or (617) 625-8569.


©Martin Jukovsky

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