So all this fun that we are having trying to trace the origin of the use of "space" here (and I just contributed a post of my own to the fun) really doesn't get to the point, which is the irrepressable urge that business people (and not just them, by the way) have to put things in roundabout ways that "sound" more intelligent than they are (that is, if they aren't actively obscuring or euphemizing issues).
The writer could just as easily have said, "Our problem isn't just that we can't sell chips to Desktop PC makers; even the business market for new network servers has been dwindling."
Peter Kosenko
---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 23:27:44 -0500 (EST)
>
>
>On Mon Mar 12, Doug Henwood worte:
>
>> 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."
>
>Okay, I'll bite. What's wrong with the simple explanation? That "server
>space" originally meant "space on the server." And after it became a
>stock phrase, some one used it to mean space in the budget or business
>plan devoted to servers. And the other monkeys began to imitate it. And
>there was a ready analogy to desktop space and chip space. They
>originally meant the space a program took up on the desktop or chip, and
>then the space the desktop or chip took up in the business plan.
>
>Michael
>
>__________________________________________________________________________
>Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com
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