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Conference thebay::joyoflex

Title:	The Joy of Lex
Notice:	A Notes File even your grammar could love
Moderator:	THEBAY::SYSTEM

Created:	Fri Feb 28 1986
Last Modified:	Mon Jun 02 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1192
Total number of notes:	42769

1042.0. "Endangered Species - protected words" by AUSSIE::WHORLOW (Bushies do it for FREE!) Tue Apr 20 1993 15:43

    G'day,
    
    The local computer section in 'The Australian' national newspaper 
    carried an article about the word 'Architect'. Apparently, following
    from a law passed 'by one of the early Georges', the NSW government
    passed an act in 1921 which makes the use of the word 'Architect'
    illegal for use by any but someone from the profession of Architects! 
    
    The architects were objecting to the use of the words 'System
    Architect' in computer job advertisements. 
    
    Apparently there was no objection to a qualified use of the word
    'architect' - 'Systems naval architect' was quite acceptable. It seems
    it was considered that 'Systems Architect' was confusing - although a head
    hunter that was interviewed said that there had been no confusion by
    any of the candidates.
    
    Does any member of our erudite team know of any other word that is
    protected by law? (apart from copyright/patent type protection?)
    
    derek

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
1042.1	Well, the Acad�mie Fran�aise comes to mind...	RDVAX::KALIKOW	Supplely Chained	`Tue Apr 20 1993 16:29`	3
	... but that seems more to be about prohibiting words and "protecting" a language...
1042.2		JIT081::DIAMOND	Pardon me? Or must I be a criminal?	`Tue Apr 20 1993 18:15`	10
	Doctor, lawyer, accountant, engineer.... The word "Olympic" and many derivatives, but these are akin to trademarks which are akin to what .0 didn't want. I must admit though, I don't see how "systems architect" is any less qualified than "systems naval architect". I think this kind of qualification is binary (yes or no), not a count of the number of qualifiers. -- Norman Diamond
1042.3		PASTIS::MONAHAN	humanity is a trojan horse	`Tue Apr 20 1993 23:18`	10
	If by "endangered" you mean "becoming almost meaningless by misuse" then I would suggest "esquire". A suffiently ancient definition will tell you that this can only be used correctly for someone with a precisely defined rank in the nobility, or a graduate of a British university (my wife qualifies on the second count). Its current use, abbreviated to "Esq." seems to be there only to give typists a little more work when typing addresses. Dave (part-time tree architect)
1042.4		NOTIME::SACKS	Gerald Sacks ZKO2-3/N30 DTN:381-2085	`Wed Apr 21 1993 07:06`	3
	re .3: In the U.S., esquire seems to be used only by pretentious lawyers.
1042.5		MU::PORTER	have a nice datum	`Mon Apr 26 1993 09:09`	18
	re .4 My Concise Oxford bears that out. It says esquire n. \|\| Title appended to name of one regarded as gentleman by birth, position or education, or to name of any man in formal use or in address of letter where there is no prefixed title. * title of law officer etc. [arch] The symbols are: \|\| chiefly not U.S. * chiefly U.S.