Posted by Ed Kiser on September 19, 2002 at 16:11:35 from 152.163.188.167 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Re: Ed's magic search engine-vanilla? posted by Peter H on September 19, 2002 at 15:25:56:
The meaning of "vanilla", in the context in which I
was using it, was intended to mean, "plain, simple,
uncomplicated, fundamental in function."
It is the opposite concept of saying something was made with
"all the bells and whistles."
Now that I think about it, I think the origin of such
usage for "vanilla" was indeed "shop-talk" as it was
used at IBM programming development to have a first
version be simplified to where nothing not absolutely
needed was to be included. Subsequent versions would
have certain enhancments. We kept a "wish book" on
our projects, with ideas of things that would be nice
if time and budget permitted, to spiff up (inhance)
a previous product and hopefully give it more usability
and perhaps just "glitter and glitz" to make it look
good. Such a "wish book" was said to have the proposed
"bells and whistles", while the original version that
went out did the job, but with nothing extra, so was
referred to as the "vanilla" version.
So I guess it was job-related jargon after all. Funny,
you get so used to these usages that it just becomes
a part of the ordinary language. The end result is that
its usage tends to separate "them" from "us". That is
not good. Perhaps one could say such wordings are to be
used "in house", but are not for "out house" usage. I know,
more jargon...
Hard enough just trying to decide to spell it
"labour" or "labor" - kinda depends on who I'm talking to...
But then, for a sailor to call something a "Rope" when
"sheet" or "painter" etc. would be more to his liking,
such usage is tantamount to heresy - to him.
But hearing and reading such verbage is how we all learn.
That is much of the delight in the Ransome stories, in
that the words were not necessarily all that familiar to
me, but was something new and therefore a bit exciting.
It made the learning experience all that much more fun.
Where else would I have heard of "gallumphing?"
Ed Kiser, South Florida