The vocabulary of a random day at the office

Zipf’s Law strikes as often in the office as it does anywhere else.  Here are some random words from my day.  Gaps are due to lunch or to me giving a talk.

• 11:00 AM le pinaillage: hair-splitting.  This came up in an email exchange about the best name for a directory.
• 11:17 AM à propos de: regarding, about, concerning.  Directory names again.
• 11:24 AM le fichier: a file–in this context, a computer file.
• 11:36 AM le répertoire: notebook, file; I got this in a UNIX error message about failure of the scp command.
• 12:30 PM le rappel: reminder, in which sense it was used in email the other day; today, it was used in the sense of the technical term “recall,” which is an important concept in evaluating systems in my field.
• 15:10 PM: saisir: many meanings relating to grasping or seizing things, but in informatics, it refers to entering or inputting data.  The cue to put in your PIN on my cell phone uses the verb saisir.  (It showed up half an hour later in the more general meaning of grabbing, in an advertising email urging me to saisir some travel deals rapidement.)
• 16:43 PM: si: I knew this one in theory, but didn’t recognize it in practice until, like, the 5th time in a row that my office mate said it to me.  It means “yes,” but something like “on the contrary–yes.”  I said that I could ssh from my desktop to a server, but couldn’t scp from the server to my desktop, at which she said si–if you can ssh, you can scp.
• 16:50 PM: le tableau blanc: whiteboard.
• 15:49 PM: sauvegarder: to back up, to save (data).  My cell phone voice mail has an option to sauvegarder a message.
• 17:50 PM: la passerelle: a footbridge, gangway, or walkway.  It was used in the sense of something that allows you to connect to a remote computer.
• 17:51 PM: rebondir: to bounce, bounce back.  It was used in the sense of contacting a server and getting something back.  (I ran into this word again in the evening in a book store, on a magazine cover, which asked the question “Can Japan bounce back?”)
• 17:52 PM: la mise en place: setting up, establishment of something.
• 17:53 PM: côté client: client-side.  (If you don’t know what this means: it’s a geek thing.  Not important.)