The mainframe, declared dead by some computing-industry officials just a few years ago, is making a comeback. And computer-science students looking for jobs would do well to take note, experts say.
In the 1990s most companies were eager to decentralize their computing systems, so they traded in their mainframes—machines capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of users at once—for battalions of PC’s. But centralized computing is back in vogue, and the market for mainframe experts has re-emerged. (IDG News Service)
11 Responses to The Market for Mainframes
bizdean - November 28, 2011 at 8:37 am
Seems to me that as home and zero are nouns, they need the “in” to turn them into verb phrases. “Hone” is already a verb.
This doesn’t mean you can’t add a preposition to a verb (“Hang up the phone”). I’m saying only that it’s unnecessary.
This is quite aside from the semantic argument.
jpminnc - November 28, 2011 at 8:52 am
Fun expressions all. I think “zero in on” might make sense in terms of aiming a gun: you shoot it once in the general direction and watch where the bullet hits. Then, without moving the gun, you can “zero” the rangefinder/scope so that it aims at exactly where the bullet landed. Since little movements are likely to occur, you might need to do it more than once. Then again, I’m no expert at ordnance (I learned this method by using a small telescope with a smaller rangefinder): I wouldn’t want to be horning in on some specialist’s territory. I had never noticed “honing,” but I disagree with Gaertner-Johnston’s claim that it makes no sense. People can hone skills or arguments, in the sense of “polishing” them, but to “hone” a blade means to grind it down (if ever so slightly) so as to leave a sharp edge: it shouldn’t be the same as “polish,” since it implies removing an appreciable amount of substance. Thus to “hone in on” an idea might (I imagine) make sense as an act of removing any minor flaws in the way that the idea is formulated. Maybe?
mbelvadi - November 28, 2011 at 9:38 am
I wonder if “hone in on” might also be an eggcorn for “horn in on”, as in a shoehorn that inserts itself into a situation? Between “home in on” and “horn in on”, it seems inevitable that “hone in on” (which I agree makes no sense at all) might end up being a double eggcorn.
Lucy Ferriss - November 28, 2011 at 9:39 am
Actually, all 3 words began as nouns. Both “home” and “hone” began to see usage as verbs in the 19th century, “zero” a bit later, and all usages were simple (not phrasal) at the start.
agoulem - November 28, 2011 at 1:32 pm
That’s mind bottling.
dank48 - November 28, 2011 at 2:04 pm
I think “hone in on” for “home in on” makes as much sense as “null over” for “mull over.”
11274135 - November 28, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Hey you want prepositions? You just come on out from back up in under there.
11274135 - November 28, 2011 at 4:28 pm
One way or the other, it’s no skin off my teeth.
dank48 - November 28, 2011 at 4:39 pm
I’ll expect any day to hear someone say they escaped by the skin of their nose (or ass). I used to have a coworker who invariably said “in lieu of” for “in light of”; it was amazing how frequently the phrase came up.
Mari Zeleznik - November 29, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Hone and home are two different verbs with two different meanings–but certainly similar enough to confuse. So the long explanation made me wonder why someone didn’t simply look it up. I’ve never heard either of the expressions discussed.
MarjoryMunson - November 30, 2011 at 8:26 am
Such errors often originate in the tendency of young children to substitute a familiar word for a similar-sounding word with which they are not familiar. If people actually listen to what children say and then correct them (with a definition of each of the words to promote understanding), this can be remedied before any particular misuse becomes a habit that may be difficult to break.