Light On Dark Water

To Architect Or Not To Architect

In the comments a few days ago discussing "graduated college" vs. "graduated from college," there were mentions of several current verbal tics that get on people's nerves. Rob G mentioned that he'd heard one that came from IT (information technology) that really bugs him, but couldn't remember what it was.

I wonder if it was the use of "architect" as a verb. Not only a verb, but one commonly found in the past tense, as "architected." As in "We architected this system to be very responsive." There are multiple annoying usages that come from the IT world, but this one makes me snarl.

It means, as you can gather, nothing more or less than "designed." There is a reason for its existence, and the reason reveals a lot about the linguistic knowledge and sensitivities of technologists. Going back forty years and more, there has existed a sub-category of computer engineering called computer architecture, or sometimes system architecture. It refers to the structure of a system, or some major feature of it, considered as a whole, comparable to the ordinary use of the word "architecture" in relation to building.

Some person with absolutely no feel for language apparently decided that architecture is the result of the activity of architecting, and began to speak in ugly sentences like the one above. It's caught on to some degree, though I hope it's so clumsy that few outside the technical world will adopt it. 

Architecting

Maclin Horton
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22 responses to “To Architect Or Not To Architect”

  1. Rob G

    I’ve not heard that one, but it’s pretty bad. The one that I was thinking of was “hack,” which I never heard before a few days ago. A friend sent this example:
    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/inebriateme/2014/05/this-confession-hack-just-might-change-your-life/
    I’m not into the computer thing at all. I visit three or four blogs regularly, I buy stuff on the net, and I do email, and that’s about it. That’s probably why I never saw “hack” before, as it seems to be largely a computer/net usage.

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  2. Mac

    Ugh. “Hack” has a long and legitimate history among programmers, meaning something along the lines of “clever trick” but with a slightly pejorative as well as complimentary connotation, an implication that it’s not really the best practice. A bit like “kludge” but much less derogatory, That preceded its reference to breaking in to accounts etc. I’m not sure when it spread to the world at large to be used, for instance, by lifehacker.com. I don’t mind it in general but “confession hack” goes way too far.

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  3. Don

    I find “architect” as a verb mildly annoying. “Solution” is much worse – i want to throw things at people when they talk about “solutioning” – fortunately it is usually on a conference call.

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  4. Mac

    Gah! I haven’t heard that one. You have to ask yourself “what the hell is wrong with these people?” Are perfectly good words like “designing” and “solving” just too ordinary? Too lacking in techno-mystique?
    “Kludge”, by the way, is much like “jury-rig.” Never a good thing, though sometimes justifiable by necessity. And here’s the link to lifehacker.com, which is sort of hodge-podge of technology and “life skills”-related ideas and gadgets: “Reduce Phone Clutter by Deleting All Those Redundant Apps”.

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  5. Robert Gotcher

    It is English’s fault. In English everything can become a verb. It reminds me of the German words “duzen” and “siezen.” They mean to address someone as “du” (informal) or as “Sie” (formal). You only “duzen” with relatives and close friends and God. There is actually a protocal where you say to someone who has become sufficiently friendly, “Let’s ‘duzen’!” (Wir sollen uns duzen).
    By the way, that is why the Quakers use “thee” and why the KJV addresses God as “thou.” It was NOT originally a formal address, but an intimate one. You would only “thou” and “thee” children, close friends, and God. Otherwise you would say “you.” Somehow it got all switched around. Now we think of “thee” as formal and “you” as informal.
    This led to confusion about Martin Buber’s book Ich und du, which was unfortunately translated into English as I and Thou, thereby losing Buber’s point that we need an intimate relationship with God and each other. We need to “duzen,” not “siezen.”

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  6. Paul

    I tell my Dutch students that English lost the second-person singular personal pronoun through an excess of politeness: only the formal (plural) form has survived.

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  7. Mac

    I’ve always assumed that it was the second-person plural that had been lost. Well, to the extent that I thought about it at all–I guess I assumed that because “you” is the standard singular, with the plural requiring some auxiliary where clarity is required (“you guys”! :-/–“y’all” is so much better) there either never had been a plural, or it had been lost.
    That’s fascinating about thee and thou. I had assumed that they were originally neither especially formal nor informal, just antique, but had become formal by being used for God.

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  8. godescalc

    The thing is, English, German, all the Slavic languages, Latin, and for all I know every single language that has the distinction, uses the emphatically informal second-person singular to refer to God… to the degree that, in English, God is pretty much the only person anyone ever refers to in such familiar language (unless you’re reading old poetry to your beloved).

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  9. Paul

    I will qualify that by observing that the post-Vatican II liturgical translations into Dutch and French tend to use the formal forms, where older-fashioned devotional literature might not.

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  10. Craig

    Another annoying verbal tic I’ve noticed of late, mostly from the mouths of mid-level bureaucrats: “send that information to me soonest” — as in “right away”. Every time I hear it I cringe and want to hit something.
    If you ask for an argument explaining exactly why that usage is wrong, I’m not sure I can architect it, but I know it’s wrong all the same.

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  11. Mac

    “Soonest” has been around for a long time. I have the vague impression that it’s of military origin but I don’t know.

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  12. Anne-Marie

    In French also, God is addressed with the intimate “tu” but the saints with the more formal “vous.” My grandmother once replied to a priest who spoke to her in what she considered overly familiar terms, “Father, I am just a sinful human, do not address me as if I were the Lord.”

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  13. Mac

    The lesson I’m drawing from all this is that those of us who prefer the language of the old Anglican liturgy are more theologically correct, but we just didn’t know it.

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  14. Louise

    Every noun in English may be able to be turned into a verb, but most people have the good sense not to do it. Those examples are all ghastly! I will now go and scoop my eyes out with spoons. 😛

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  15. Louise

    I consider all those examples to be sure signs of The End of The World.

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  16. Anne-Marie

    From a Washington Post chat about home decor today: “You may need to reach out to your local hardware store to find out the right anchors for your wall.”

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  17. Mac

    The phrase always makes me picture a sort of ballet-like pose–standing on one leg, arm gracefully extended in outreach, soulful expression on face. Doesn’t fit very well with “local hardware store.” Though actually that’s kind of a funny thought: walking up to the counter and telling the clerk how much you care, how you’ve been thinking a lot about hardware, and just felt a need to reach out…

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  18. Paul

    I suppose at root it’s the same metaphor as “get in touch with”, but somehow it does call up a very different image.

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  19. Mac

    I suppose so. And maybe in a generation “reach out to the hardware store” won’t sound any odder than “get in touch with the hardware store.” Which actually is an even odder way to put it if you start thinking about it literally.
    I suspect, though, that this use of “reach out” was an attempt to draw touchie-feelie language into the business environment, which cool technology-oriented firms like to do–they like to think they’re about something other than making money.

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  20. Louise

    In fencing, when you hit your opponent it’s a “touch,” hence “touche.”
    So the words “reach out and touch somebody” have a sword-fighting element to them, for me!

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  21. Mac

    “Reach out and run somebody through”–nice.

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  22. Louise

    😀

    Reply

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