Adecvax.196 net.followup utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!minow Mon Apr 5 18:56:34 1982 On Functionality Last week I inquired about attitudes towards, and replacements for the ever so popular word "functionality." Several people suggested "capability." Many were quite vehement in their denouncement of "this hackneyed non-word." Other responses include: -- replacing it by such words as: Feature - when describing a thing that something has Function - when describing a thing that something does Capability - when describing a thing that something can do -- John Winterton at decvax!watmath!jcwinterton -- "... there is a citation [in the OED] from the 1870's.... I've never found a good synonym, unfortunately; however, you can always re-case your sentence to avoid the word. -- Jerry Leichter at yale-comix -- Since 'functionality' is a noun (function) made into an adjective (functional) made into a noun (functionality), in most cases it would suffice to leave it as the original noun (function). -- Don't recall who sent this; sorry. -- How about the word "functions" - "the functionality of this new product..." cf. "the functions provided by this new..." but it will never word: buzzword-itis strikes those who know least what they talk about, and who, unfortunately, have the power to propagate the error. -- Keith Ericson at tektronix. -- "usefulness" can sometimes replace functionality. You can also say: TECO does the same thing or TECO has the same function or TECO serves the same function instead of TECO provides the same functionality. -- Andy Tannenbaum, Bell Labs, Whippany NY Thanks also to Bruce Wright at Duke. Sorry about losing return addresses: I don't use unix mail and vi often enough to understand all the cute things you can do with them, and certainly don't understand all the cute things they can do to you. Martin Minow decvax!minow ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.