{"id":8718,"date":"2005-03-19T09:23:44","date_gmt":"2005-03-19T07:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/03\/19\/on-meaning-of-words-console\/"},"modified":"2005-05-09T02:07:09","modified_gmt":"2005-05-08T23:07:09","slug":"on-meaning-of-words-console","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/03\/19\/on-meaning-of-words-console\/","title":{"rendered":"On meaning of words: console"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am not a native English speaker. I’ve learned most of my English in high shool. A big part of my vocabulary also comes from my Computer Science education. Somehow, many words in computer terminology come with the only true meaning to me and I don’t even bother checking them in the dictionary. Sometimes, years later after I have learned the word I see it in a different context. Looking it up in the dictionary and thesaurus never stops to amaze me.<\/p>\n

Until today, the word “console” was only a noun to me. It meant the command line interface to a computer program. I never suspected it that it had any other meaning. But today I saw it used differently in the sentense:<\/p>\n

I tried to console the old man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This sentense was used in a rather sad story<\/a> about the victims of Asian tsunami at the end of the last year. The story is as far from the computers as it can get. So I looked it up in the dictionary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

console<\/b> – To allay the sorrow or grief of. See Synonyms at comfort.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not only I saw the synonyms at comfort<\/a>, but I’ve also checked the thesaurus for console<\/a>. And it is exactle where I started to get really amazed.<\/p>\n

Several words that thesaurus suggests for console (as a verb) sustitution are: calm<\/i>, cheer<\/i>, encourage<\/i>, and untrouble<\/i>. The amazing part here is that very often experienced computer users would switch from slow, limiting, and complicated graphical user interface to text mode console to solve some problem. And what console will do to them is: calm them down, cheer them up, encourage them and untrouble.<\/p>\n

I really the connection now between console verb and console noun. But wht I find interesting is that text mode consoles were among the first user-to-computer interfaces. They were definetely before slow, limiting, and complicated graphical user interfaces. This leads me to believe that user interfaces that were before consoles were a real mess.<\/p>\n

Now, can anyone remind me what were these interfaces? My memory doesn’t go beyond punch cards<\/a>. And these were really ugly if you ask me…<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

I am not a native English speaker. I’ve learned most of my English in high shool. A big part of my vocabulary also comes from my Computer Science education. Somehow, many words in computer terminology come with the only true meaning to me and I don’t even bother checking them in the dictionary. Sometimes, years … Continue reading On meaning of words: console<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[59,2416],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-8718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-expressions","tag-thoughts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7562,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2004\/06\/10\/5th-sentense-on-page-23-of-the-nearest-book\/","url_meta":{"origin":8718,"position":0},"title":"5th sentense on page 23 of the nearest book","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"June 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Since I have seen this at a number of other blogs, I'll try it too. Get the nearest book. Open it on page 23. Find the 5th sentence. Post it in your blog. For some reason, I have two books that are at exactly the same distance from me: Perl\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9202,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/07\/07\/char-or-trout\/","url_meta":{"origin":8718,"position":1},"title":"Char or trout","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"July 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Consider the joke told by Richard Stallman that I read in this article: Once I was eating in Legal Sea Food and ordered arctic char. When it arrived, I looked for a signature, saw none, and complained to my friends, \"This is an unsigned char. I wanted a signed char!\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8757,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/03\/31\/on-writing\/","url_meta":{"origin":8718,"position":2},"title":"On writing","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"March 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul Graham has recently wrote a short, but non-the-less interesting essey about writing. He explains why writing is important and how to write well. Writing well is a nicely covered topic. There are numerous books on communications in general and writing in particular. Most collegues require passing of at least\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8712,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/03\/16\/outside\/","url_meta":{"origin":8718,"position":3},"title":"Outside","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"March 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"As I have mentioned yesterday, Maxim is not sleeping very well during the last couple of days. It's not that big of a problem except for all three of us (my mother, Olga and me) behaving totally weird. We instantly forget what we were doing. We stop talking in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9036,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/06\/02\/new-default-dictionary\/","url_meta":{"origin":8718,"position":4},"title":"New default dictionary","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"June 2, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Until now I've been using http:\/\/www.rambler.ru\/dict for all my translation needs. I realize that it might not at all be the best out there, but it is was good enough. I wanted something fast and simple. No need for phrases, just quick word translations from Russian to English, and back.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9270,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/07\/26\/dictionary-plugins-for-mozilla-firefox\/","url_meta":{"origin":8718,"position":5},"title":"Dictionary plugins for Mozilla Firefox","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"July 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Being a non-native English speaker, I have this mildly often need to lookup the translation of some word in the dictionary. Instead of installing translation software on my computer or visiting one of the online translators every time such a need arises, I chose to use an extension to Mozilla\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8718"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=8718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}