Is a show-stopper a good thing or a bad thing?
john...@sydney.dialix.oz.au
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06173
where the writer refers to one of the features of a program as a
"show-stopper".
He obviously thought, from the context, that meant a very bad thing.
I have never heard the term used in a bad way. I have always
thought it meant a composition or performance so good that it
stopped a stage musical.
Does anyone know of its use in a pejorative sense?
--
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Mark Brader
> He obviously thought, from the context, that ["show-stopper"]
> meant a very bad thing.
>
> I have never heard the term used in a bad way. I have always
> thought it meant a composition or performance so good that it
> stopped a stage musical.
Yep. The Jargon File / New Hacker's Dictionary says at
<http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/showstopper.html>:
# showstopper n.
#
# A hardware or (especially) software bug that makes an implementation
# effectively unusable; one that absolutely has to be fixed before
# development can go on. Opposite in connotation from its original
# theatrical use, which refers to something stunningly good.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "This man must be very ignorant, for he answers
m...@vex.net | every question he is asked." -- Voltaire
My text in this article is in the public domain, as is the Jargon File.
Ray Heindl
>I was reading a review at the website TidBits:
>
> http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06173
>
>where the writer refers to one of the features of a program as a
>"show-stopper".
>
>He obviously thought, from the context, that meant a very bad thing.
>
>I have never heard the term used in a bad way. I have always
>thought it meant a composition or performance so good that it
>stopped a stage musical.
>
>Does anyone know of its use in a pejorative sense?
I don't recall seeing it used in a positive sense before. I've always
heard it used to mean a problem serious enough to cause a project to be
abandoned (in a business context).
--
Ray Heindl
Skitt
"Ray Heindl" <rhe...@nccw.net> wrote in message
news:8FE59394...@207.126.101.100...
You are under thirty, I presume, and are not interested in the cultural
aspects of life.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://i.am/skitt/
Wayward in Hayward
Ray Heindl
<PNZN5.962$qr.5...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>:
I wish, and not particularly. I rarely read reviews, which is where I
would expect to see something like "show-stopper" used.
--
Ray Heindl
GrapeApe
Originally and in most useage "a show-stopper" was complementary, referring to
the best part of a show, but it doesn't have to be- something horrible can stop
a show as well.
So you have to determine the meaning from context.
Has "Face that could stop a clock" ever been used to denote postive beauty
rather than ugliness? I think I have seen examples, but not often.
I am reminded of the language of recommemdation letters, in which what could be
read as positive recommendation is actually euphemistic code for bad employee
habits.
--cut and paste to adopt this sig file---
Make Deja a useful Usenet Archive again!
David McMurray
> I have seen show-stopper used in a perjorative sense, often ironically.
>
> Originally and in most useage "a show-stopper" was complementary,
> referring to the best part of a show, but it doesn't have to be- something
> horrible can stop a show as well.
>
> So you have to determine the meaning from context.
>
> Has "Face that could stop a clock" ever been used to denote postive beauty
> rather than ugliness? I think I have seen examples, but not often.
"When I look into your eyes, time stands still".
[...]
--
David
Evan Kirshenbaum
> I have seen show-stopper used in a perjorative sense, often
> ironically.
In my business, "showstopper" is pretty much only used pejoratively
and completely non-ironically. When filing a bug report, you are
typically asked to rate the severity of the bug, to be used in
prioritizing resources to be assigned to fix it. This can range from
"documentation typo" through "mild, with a simple workaround",
"annoying", and "severe". The most serious is "showstopper", which is
pretty much "if you don't fix this bug (or at least find us a
workaround), we will be forced to abandon use of your product".
In a wider sense, a showstopper is any problem that comes up which, if
not accounted for, will cause a project to fail (not merely be
delayed) or make it worth abandoning. Proving that your current
approach would require an efficient solution to an NP complete[1]
problem (or, worse yet, an undecidable problem like the Halting
Problem) would be a showstopper. Having your transfer partner
disbanded or refocused on a different market might be a showstopper.
[1] I just heard that the question of whether a Minesweeper board is
consistent has just been proven to be NP complete. Those of you
who are interested in the million dollar prize can try your hands
on that one.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Giving money and power to government
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |is like giving whiskey and car keys
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |to teenage boys.
| P.J. O'Rourke
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
willia...@my-deja.com
rhe...@nccw.net (Ray Heindl) wrote:
> sk...@earthlink.net (Skitt) wrote in
> >You are under thirty, I presume, and are not interested in the
> >cultural aspects of life.
>
> I wish, and not particularly. I rarely read reviews, which is where I
> would expect to see something like "show-stopper" used.
I asked the question of someone younger than me but quite definitely
over thirty, whose first reaction was that "show-stopper" was negative;
only on reflection did she recall that when she had bee interested in
theater, it was positive.
She was puzzled by the thought that the pejorativicity of the word would
be correlated with age. My explanation was that the metaphor of a
project as a show is a fairly recent transfer to business, engineering,
and, especially, computer engineering. Lots of us learned our language
before this transfer took place; we don't think of a project as a show
that can be stopped. Also, computer engineering in particular is a
field that tends to be populated by younger people.
Gary Williams
> --
> Ray Heindl
Ray Heindl
I heard it used regularly (and pejoratively) in a very old industrial
company with a relatively mature work force, but it may have been
imported by the younger set.
I recently saw a bumper sticker advertising a group called
"Showstoppers", which (judging from adjacent bumper stickers) is a
baton-twirling exhibition group. Presumably the reference was intended
in a positive sense.
--
Ray Heindl
Skitt
I suppose, it may be time to look in a dictionary. MWCD10:
Main Entry: show·stop·per
Pronunciation: -"stä-p&r
Function: noun
Date: 1926
1 : an act, song, or performer that wins applause so
prolonged as to interrupt a performance
2 : something or someone exceptionally arresting or
attractive <the gold crown was the showstopper of the
exhibition>
- show·stop·ping /-"stä-pi[ng]/ adjective
No pejorative meanings there. They must be new enough to not have earned
dictionary recognition yet. I have not heard the word used pejoratively in
my life, and I retired from a computer and software job only eight months
ago.
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>In article <lWgP5.7604$U4.3...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, Skitt wrote:
>>
>>I suppose, it may be time to look in a dictionary. MWCD10:
>>
>>Main Entry: show·stop·per
>>Pronunciation: -"stä-p&r
>>Function: noun
>>Date: 1926
>>1 : an act, song, or performer that wins applause so
>>prolonged as to interrupt a performance
>>2 : something or someone exceptionally arresting or
>>attractive <the gold crown was the showstopper of the
>>exhibition>
>>- show·stop·ping /-"stä-pi[ng]/ adjective
>>
>>No pejorative meanings there. They must be new enough to not have earned
>>dictionary recognition yet. I have not heard the word used pejoratively in
>>my life, and I retired from a computer and software job only eight months
>>ago.
>
>Oh, it's definitely been used pejoratively for longer than eight
>months. It could be "something exceptionally arresting" without
>the "attractive". Perhaps it comes from the fact that the show
>must go on, but a showstopper will slow that process for a while.
Mistakes happen. If you've heard someone use the word pejoratively in
reference to a theatrical performance, the word was being misused.
Charles Riggs
Mark Brader
> Oh, it's definitely been used pejoratively for longer than eight
I've heard "showstopper" used for years to describe a serious problem
(specifically, a serious bug in software). But I don't see why various
people in this thread are using "pejorative" to refer to this meaning.
It's a simple description of a level of severity; there is no insult or
disparagement intended.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "Unjutsly malinged? I think not."
m...@vex.net -- Ross Howard
My text in this article is in the public domain.