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Thursday 9 May 2013

good to go: a rant

I've got WORD 2013 on my new laptop.

Yes, there are some uniquely irritating things about it, but on the whole I'd give it the thumbs-up.

I would have more confidence in the spell-check function, though, if, once a document has been processed, the blasted thing didn't come up with a message which says:

Spell check complete.
You're good to go.

Good to go?

Good to go????

Would the wretched program have told Shakespeare he was good to go after he'd just killed off just about everyone at the end of Hamlet?

Er...yes, it would, wouldn't it.

Oh, and I bet that would prompted some new last words for the Dane.

Mark this, Horatio: this tablet here,
This casement, this dead eye, this soulless pane:
It has my words, my very heart's depths, caught
And whispered to me thus: you're good to go... 
                                                                  [Dies]

Ooh, there's nothing like a bit of blank verse to relieve the feelings, you know.

I feel better, now.

And I suppose Hamlet might have died just a bit happier, mightn't he.

Word To Use Today: good. This word has hardly changed in a millennium. The Old English version was gōd.
 
Good to go, though, is modern. It's fine in an informal context, but I really expect my computer to be more professional.


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4 comments:

  1. Eddie F9 May 2013 at 20:08

    Computers have been taking informal liberties for some now. It annoys me when Firefox crashes and I get a messages saying 'Oops!'

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sally Prue10 May 2013 at 13:42

    Oops, indeed. When even God was courteous enough to go for: "We apologise for the iconvenience".

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous20 November 2014 at 01:21

    The new Microsoft Office popup message infuriate me. Telling me I'm "good to go" after a spell check - excuse me Outlook, but we're not such good friends that you can talk to me like that. Nor can you ask "Want to save your changes?" - that sentence has no subject - who are you talking to? And if Outlook can't find my search term, it says "we couldn't find what you are looking for". "We"? Is there a team of little gremlins back there, searching for my email?

    My timesheet software says "let's try that again" whenever there is an error, which I don't like. And when Chrome says "Aw, snap!" when a tab crashes... it makes me want to switch back to Internet Explorer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sally Prue20 November 2014 at 07:48

      Thanks for your comment, darnkitty. I so much agree that I already HAVE switched back to Internet Explorer!
      You make a very good point about the manipulative nature of these messages: the "we're friends so of course you owe us loyalty" idea.
      Just for the record: no we aren't and no we don't.
      Pah!

      Delete

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