Funny sad stories of computer terms

The Van Nghe Newspaper No. 1 + 2 in 2005 has published the article " Wrong translation is destroying Vietnamese ", including some words that are misused, misunderstood in Vietnamese. At the top of the list is the word 'computer'.

The root of the term 'computer'

The first electronic ball-powered digital computer was born in 1945 with a long name expressing the main functions, abbreviated as ENIAC. The official name of the computer was used a little later and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1946, we translated it as an electronic computer , before 1975 in Nam translated as a computer.

Early computers were as big as a house. Thanks to the invention of transistors to replace electronic balls, much smaller computers are made. The smallest of them is called a minicomputer that translates into minicomputers . The invention of silicon chips allowed the production of much smaller computers in the early 1970s. These machines were called microcomputers , meaning microscopic computers.

In 1981 IBM launched a new name, personal computer (PC), which translates as a personal computer. Since then, people have gradually stopped using microcomputers.

According to a foreign website, in 1975, the translation team of informatics (Vietnamese people in Paris) translated the jargon to the terminology. On each number, they translated 100 terms into Vietnamese. This journal shows three numbers. The term computer generated here translates from microcomputers.

Dr. Bui Van Thanh returned to work at the Institute of Computational Science and Control in 1975, seeing that some brothers in the institute started using computers to call the microcomputer from the end of 1976. He said: 'I am allergic. with two computer and informatics words. I never use these two words'.

In the Radio, Electronic, and Informatics Dictionary of Pham Van Bay, 1987 Science and Technology Publisher, from microcomputer translation is a micro computer . This proves that the only scientific and collective dictionary dictionary author in Vietnam at this time still does not know what computer is. In fact, the word has been looming in Vietnamese for the past ten years. The author's book of the same name published in 1990 translates from a microcomputer as a computer . Thus, from a computer to a specialized dictionary in 1990. From the computer to the Vietnamese Dictionary of the Institute of Linguistics, written by Prof. Hoang Phe, in 1992 with a note as a speech. Today all dictionaries translate from microcomputer to computer , mostly with microcomputer phrases.

Spectacular mistake

Many people think that microphones are micro ( computing ), computing is computational, then microcomputing into computer is too reassuring! Sorry, translation is not so simple. The translation is for the reader to understand the true meaning inherent in the original: microcomputer, 'because it is smaller than previous computers'!

From a computer , sadly, does not bring that meaning. I tried asking a lot of people around, who were educated, including computer engineers. They all answer: Computers are for calculating sophistication, not for calculating simplicity (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). Even some people write books and compose dictionaries.

I saw a newspaper, a magazine, the main section of some websites named computers . This proves that computers have been understood as computers in general, computing in general, and not a microcomputer anymore!

Since computers do not convey the meaning to translate into Vietnamese. From the root, people have long abandoned it, only in the dictionary. We have deduced the meaning of computers through intuition and unfortunately have become other machines.

The main pre-sub-regulation in Vietnamese language is absolutely the same as the one that goes to the right in Vietnam's Traffic Law. Do not learn grammar, people still say the front and back, as well as not learn the traffic law, people still go to the right.

In fact, in Vietnamese, sometimes it is not easy to distinguish between them. However, it is clear from the case of computer grafting, where is the secondary. So it cannot be said that the word computer is not Vietnamese.

Writing and writing are very different. However, in composition, many people still use speech to bring a funny and funny look. The Vietnamese dictionary of the Institute of Vietnamese Linguistics, written by Prof. Hoang Phe, recognizes the word computer as a speech, which means that it should be used only in spoken language, recognizing that the word has something unstable in meaning, I speak according to habits. Its official, accurate word must be computer, computer . If acknowledging the note in the Vietnamese Dictionary, the case from the computer is no longer a penetration, but an invasion of spoken language into the country of writing.

The term computer comes out to translate the name of a very small computer, but after a long time of using it, it is understood to include a very big computer. It is a funny story but also reminds us something about using Vietnamese.

BUI BAC