>Peter Kosenko wrote:
>>
>> When I reread the original snippet, I see that the term is just a
>>substitute for "market." They mean "the server market." They
>>aren't just having a slow time selling processors for desktop
>>computers but also for new network servers (usually a much more
>>expensive
>
>Among those who profess to believe that this usage is remarkable there
>ought to be someone willing to wade through those 15 long columns of
>fine print in the OED and thereby establish some basis for their
>responses to the usage. "Space" overlaps "area" in its various senses,
>and would anyone get excited about references to the industrial vs. the
>service areas of the economy? I'm rather surprised that the OED doesn't
>have 30 instead of 15 columns. Probably the speaker said space instead
>of market because he/she was comparing areas on the company's internal
>charts to each other. The market is out there, divisions of the company
>are in here.
Thanks for the lexicographical note, but I've been reading the business press and following business language for 20 years, and this use of "space" is a relatively new one on me. I thought it was interesting not only because it's fun to follow business neologisms, but because it seemed symptomatic of a further dematerialization in bourgeois discourse. Or maybe it's meatspace without the meat.
Who moved my Nasdaq?
Doug