POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : expand your vocabulary : expand your vocabulary Server Time
11 Oct 2024 07:15:19 EDT (-0400)
  expand your vocabulary  
From: Tim Cook
Date: 2 Nov 2007 03:34:13
Message: <472ae105$1@news.povray.org>
...a word which I first encountered in a level-guide reference to 
manipulating objects in Thief, 'frob', here's what an online dictionary 
has to say:

"frobnicate - /frob'ni-kayt/ (Possibly from frobnitz, and usually 
abbreviated to frob, but "frobnicate" is recognised as the official full 
form). To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. One frequently frobs bits or 
other 2-state devices. Thus: "Please frob the light switch" (that is, 
flip it), but also "Stop frobbing that clasp; you'll break it". One also 
sees the construction "to frob a frob".

Usage: frob, twiddle, and tweak sometimes connote points along a 
continuum. "Frob" connotes aimless manipulation; "twiddle" connotes 
gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting; "tweak" 
connotes fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an oscilloscope, 
then if he's carefully adjusting it, he is probably tweaking it; if he 
is just turning it but looking at the screen, he is probably twiddling 
it; but if he's just doing it because turning a knob is fun, he's 
frobbing it. The variant "frobnosticate" has also been reported."

(brought up because in a MU*, someone was trying to debug a light switch 
someone else had made and couldn't figure out the syntax; I suggested 
"flip switch", "toggle switch" (the command used), and "frob switch".  hehe.

-- 
Tim Cook
http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-empyrean

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