[Air-l] login/logon -- add 1

[Lauren Squires]

I feel like the hunch about "login" being an act and 
"logon" being a state is getting at something...I also 
seem to think of "log in" as being a more system-specific 
thing, lwhereas "log on" is more general. Or there's some 
kind of nuance about the appropriateness of the two, 
depending on what exactly you're doing/using.

As in, the library computers at my university say "Log in 
using your userID." I "log in" to my email, "log in" to a 
class instructional homepage, and likewise "log out" from 
all of them.  Whereas my computer at home is "logged on" 
to the internet (as in "connected"), but my grandma, who 
has never touched a computer, is definitely not "logged 
on." Like, "logging in" is to a specific application, 
which requires a password or something, whereas "logging 
on" is to the internet or larger system in general.  "I 
logged on to LJ, but I didn't log in."

Then again, I just checked the very same library computer 
which told me to "log in," and it also says on the desktop 
"Please remember to log off!!"  I guess in/out and on/off 
are not consistently paired.

???
Lauren

PS - Could this be anything like the (describing an IRL 
situation) "waiting in line" vs. "waiting on line" 
variation? English prepositions confused about spatial 
metaphors?

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 12:00:50 -0500
  Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>It could be said that "login" is the act of connecting 
>while "logon" is
>the state of being connected. Yet, I belive the 2 words 
>are often used
>interchangeably, as in "Is Nancy logged in?"
>
> Barry
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
>  Barry Wellman         Professor of Sociology 
>       NetLab Director
>  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca 
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----
Lauren Squires
Linguistics Program
University of Virginia
***
http://polyglotconspiracy.net