Compute

a vocab word that does not compute.

If you’ve been reading me for any length of time you’ll have noticed that I love to nerd out about language. I come at this nerddom from both my literature/writing and theatre expertises: I enjoy falling down rabbit holes of etymology and also experiencing language in a physical, sensual way. I had a professor in my BFA training who, when teaching us Shakespeare, would paint the picture of the largely illiterate audiences, experiencing his rich verse as though they were eating a meal.

He’d also show us the entire Playing Shakespeare series, which is another reinforcement of this: how to perform Shakespeare’s verse well, which means making the words a part of you—literally embodying the verse. In class when learning how to act Shakespeare, the work was so much about the integration of the body and mind. It wasn’t just reading the complex verse silently as homework and then analyzing it in class. Nope, it was way different (and I’m sure my love for and skill at Shakespearean acting is because of this): we’d spend entire hour long chunks of class time rolling around on our backs on the floor, just placing the word ROSE or TIME into various areas of our bodies.

Along with this came my interest in accent work, and learning another language (in my case, French): linguistic studies for me always had a root in sound, if not in fury. 

 

Words Worth

“What do you read, my lord?” 

“Words, words, words…”

Literature-wise? My adoration of language in literature started way earlier than that. Maybe it started with clever book-puzzle Phantom Tollbooth. But I began reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings oeuvre in 4th grade, and as such, not only did I love the sweeping epics for the plots and characters, but appreciated, even at that young age, the fact that Tolkien created Middle-Earth as a container for his original languages. Later, I got heavily into Ray Bradbury’s wordsmithing insanity, and Dylan Thomas’ admitted addictions to the beauties of words and women (well, and booze too, to be fair). After, I found myself swept away by the elevated dirtiness of Lieber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, and the small, perfectly cut gems of Rumi’s quatrains.

But beyond this sensual love, I do get super nerdy about going into word histories and evolutions, breaking apart word usage and change, the varying versions of English through the ages and across different countries where it’s used, and these days, its development in online spaces. You’ve heard me talk about Because Internet here before; it’s a fascinating overview of online language, including chatspeak, memes, and how emoticons became emojis (and how many of us still use both).

More than a performance shot, I feel like this rehearsal snap of me as Shakespeare’s brilliant fool Feste epitomizes what I’m discussing in this essay. I love its dynamic, but there’s my script in my hand too. (Animal Fire Theatre, Olympia, WA, 2022)

Jargon? I hardly know ‘n...

My partner and I, when we first met at age 15 in the back of a high school science classroom, began our navigations of getting to know one another by passing limericks back and forth. Nearly 30 years later, as we reconnected as seasoned and bitter adults with technology, we’d text those and other wordplays to each other, like speed rounds of the ‘that’s my ____ band name’ game, or other punny fun.

Now, my partner is in the world of business and tech, and with that (also because he’s been in this career for more than 20 years) comes a particular form of jargon that many call ‘corporate-speak’ or ‘biz-jargon.’ Of course, my deep and abiding interest in language isn’t limited to rich prose or clever poetry (bawdy or no)—jargon and slang are also fascinating to me: what makes one form of English speaker say they’re gonna do something, another declares they’re fixing to do it, and yet another that they’re finna do it? It’s so fun to research and explore. 

Dialects and biz-speak are similar in the ways they’re created: both grow organically and naturally from usage. That’s a different function than academic jargon, though, which is largely consciously formulated by a select few, instead of growing naturally out of spoken or written language. Academic jargon is the result not of usage, but conscious coinage.

Though, having said that, business jargon is starting to creep into academia, the more universities are taken over by corporations and run like businesses. Examples?

• I have to complete core competencies at my teaching job at DU

• At a faculty meeting, we are shown a deck about pain points and are told of our new actionable items.

• The term herding cats has been used often to describe my theatrical job of casting the variety shows of Blue Dime Cabaret. Herding wet cats, actually…

•   …and so much more.

But corporate jargon is the target of many a comedy and parody these days, and lots of folx talk about how insipid it is, how mindless. I don’t feel this way about it, though—I don’t see it as mindless, just as a system of jargon (or a foreign dialect) that I’m not fluent in. Often, I find it oddly poetic and quite dynamic. Like, using ‘onboarding’ to denote ‘hiring’? That’s some cool pirate shit, don’t deny it.

The above is a screenshot from this TikTok video, which you must watch in full to get the whole context. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

There’s a lot to praise about this video’s cleverness. First, notice how perfectly he’s dressed, and the exact angle of the imaginary corporate Zoom call computer camera. Next, notice how beautifully he non-pronounces these phrases, though I bet you could close your eyes and still be able to weirdly understand what he’s saying, right? And especially relevant to our discussion here: check out the meta-translation along the left side of the screen. Watch each row of text or symbols as they get checked off in time. Isn’t that just fascinating? You’ve got cut-off mashed-up phrases and acronyms along with strings of symbols. Watch the short video a couple times and see how meticulously he nails this parody. Or is it satire?

Compute

Now we’ve finally gotten to our particular vocab word of the week. This word is a piece of jargon that is fascinating, but not for the reasons you think. What it is, is a new term made out of an already-established word, and we’re witnessing its birth into business jargon right now. I first heard it used in this new way on a biz/tech podcast the other day and it didn’t really occur to me till my partner pointed out the different usage. 

The podcasters were discussing AI, and the sentence was this: 

“It takes a lot of compute.” 

You might think this  is grammatically incorrect, but it’s not; it’s just new usage as a term of jargon. When the podcasters said this, they meant: 

“It takes a lot of computational resources.” 

You’ll notice that compute in this case has been changed from a verb into a noun (something I’ve noticed lots of business jargon does), and clarifies the concept by standardizing the term. Like, what do we mean when we’re talking about the concept of ‘computational resources’? CPU, or energy use, or memory, or what?

Here’s what our robot overlord and good friend ChatGPT has to say about what ‘compute’ means in this new jargony context:

The use of "compute" as a noun in the context of technology, especially in fields like artificial intelligence, has indeed become a common and accepted slang term for computational resources. This usage has gained popularity relatively recently and is often used to refer to the overall processing power, capabilities, and resources involved in performing computational tasks, such as running algorithms or handling data in various computing systems.

This way, we use the word ‘compute’ and it keeps the meaning the same across the board. We know what it means because it’s a jargon term that has been adapted to mean one thing. It’s not ridiculous tech-bro or corporate-drone speak for no reason, or like academic jargon which often is in place specifically to hamstring understanding. It’s a clarification by standardization.

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To conclude? Here's a challenge:

Below is a passage supplied by my partner, in which he includes ‘compute’ in its correct usage in this new jargon form. You’ll notice this passage is all written in corporate or business jargon. Your challenge is to translate this passage accurately into academic jargon (or any other dialect or jargon you’d like), keeping its original meaning intact. Knock yerselves out, and do share your translations in the comments. I think maybe I’ll try it out too.

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“So I know you’re short on headroom but if you can spare the bandwidth, could you spend a few cycles putting eyes on the preso for Monday’s download? I’m hoping not to get pushback on the compute, but if there’s a fire drill I want to be audible-ready.”

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