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You mean its Navigation Software? I'd hate for GPS to become a synonym for route planning.
by easytiger 12y ago
You mean its Navigation Software? I'd hate for GPS to become a synonym for route planning.
- wyclif 12y agoFormer land surveyor and GPS/GIS technician here (now a developer). I have a lot of sympathy for your perspective. I remember when consumer GPS became a thing and getting a little Sheldon Cooper on folks who used "GPS" as a synonym for consumer-grade hardware: "don't you mean GPS navigation?" But that train left the station a long time ago, and I've stopped arguing with people about it because it's a losing battle. Every normal I know, from my parents to my network of friends, refers to Garmin and TomTom auto units as "GPS." They have unfortunately become identified in the common mind with the technology.
- mbrameld 12y agoIt's been a synonym now for a long time.
- danieldk 12y agoThat does not mean one can't protest it ;). You need a way to refer to an actual lousy GPS as well (long fix time, inaccurate). Lumping everything together makes it hard to be precise (like using 'begging the question' wrongly somewhere else in these comments ;)).
- spacemanmatt 12y agoI don't like it when words I know lose power either, but language changes under stress of modern usage and wrong becomes the new correct. 'Literal' became the new figurative. And so it goes.
- Doctor_Fegg 12y ago"protest _against_ it" Sorry. I'm still fighting a rearguard action against you crazy Americans' perversion of our language a "long time" ago. (I know. I know. Someone will be along in a minute to tell me that "protest it" was original authentic British English centuries ago.)
- danieldk 12y ago"protest _against_ it" Good point :). As a non-native speaker, I sometimes mess up prepositions... And of course, have a carte blanche to make errors :p.