From: Cannam@sc.ZIB-Berlin.de (Chris Cannam)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: ``Functionality''
Date: 11 Jan 93 10:54:26
Organization: Konrad Zuse Zentrum fuer Informationstechnik Berlin
Distribution: alt
	<1993Jan9.192102.10669@news2.cis.umn.edu>
	<1993Jan9.200804.8817@Princeton.EDU> <C0nMuH.IoJ@news2.cis.umn.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: borodin.zib-berlin.de
In-reply-to: charlie@umnstat.stat.umn.edu's message of Sun, 10 Jan 1993 20:13:27 GMT


In article <C0nMuH.IoJ@news2.cis.umn.edu> charlie@umnstat.stat.umn.edu
(Charles Geyer) writes:

   In article <1993Jan9.200804.8817@Princeton.EDU>
   roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:

   > "Functionality" is merely the noun form of the adjective "functional."
   >
   > And "functional" has several meanings, the most important one wrt its
   > noun form being "designed with function in mind" or similar  (as opposed
   > to design with decoration or some other attribute in mind).

[...]

   A very common meaning of "functional" is "able to function", "not broken".
   And "functionality" means "the quality of being able to perform some
   function".  Something can have "a high degree of functionality" meaning
   (to the extent that such nonsense means anything at all) that it does lots
   of things or does what ever it is supposed to do well.

Such nonsense certainly does mean something.  I really dislike the
word, and yet I find it quite difficult to avoid in certain contexts.
However, I feel that `functionality' is quite separate from
`performance': something with a high degree of functionality needn't
actually do anything particularly well.

   Tell me, on your thesis, what does "functionality" mean?  Have you ever
   heard someone say a thing "has functionality" rather than "is functional"
   to mean "not merely decorative"?

To me, `functionality' describes what something does, explicitly
avoiding describing how it does it.  I don't use the word in the sense
`x has functionality', but in the sense `x's functionality is y'.  So
I agree that it is not just the noun of `functional', at least not in
(my?!) popular use.  If it were, I could easily avoid using it at all.

   BTW, Webster's 3rd International gives "utility" as a synonym for
   "functionality" which seems to support my view.  It also provides a possible
   answer to the original question, though it's still abstract.

Hmmm, not bad.

   I prefer to say that a scale "weighs things" rather than that it
   has "weight measurement functionality".

Certainly.  The problem is (as it often is) that to describe what you
mean, instead of abstracting with such a powerful word as
`functionality', is often to make your English over long and more
difficult to follow.  If I use the word `functionality' in a document
to be read by other people acquainted with the word, I am more likely
to be understood correctly than if I use simpler words to say what I
really mean.  After all, the real meaning of the word (in its jargon
sense) is often quite tricky.  (There are limits, of course.)

Where and when did the word `functionality' arise, anyway?  Was it
invented for the jargon, or does it precede it?

							Chris

--

           on sighting mathematicians it should unhook the algebra from their
           minds and replace it with with poetry; on sighting poets it should
               unhook poetry from their minds and replace it with algebra
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english