queries

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Mar 12 11:43:03 PST 2001


Carrol Cox wrote:


>Doug Henwood wrote:
>>
>> Two unrelated questions:
>>
>> 1) When did the use of "space" illustrated in the quote below become
>> common? Is it a techie word originally?
>>
>> >"If desktop processors were our only problem we would be
>> >close to forecasts. What's driving our problem is that it is
>> >spreading into the server space as well."
>> >
>> >--Intel CFO Andy Bryant, explaining the company's newly
>> >downgraded profit forecast.
>
>Doug, the OED devotes 15 columns to _space_. Much too long to
>pore through it, but I would guess that probably the word has
>been so used for several centuries any how. Someone must have
>somewhere written something like "the practice has spread from
>industrial to cultural space." And so on and so forth.

Well, I've been alive for 48 years, speaking English for a few less than that, and it's only in the last year or two that I started hearing stock touts and CEOs talking about "chip space" and "server space." Is that usage in the OED? I don't have my copy at the office.

Doug



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