[Air-l] login/logon -- add 1
Lauren Squires
squires at virginia.edu
Wed Mar 2 10:00:22 PST 2005
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
> http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
>
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----
Lauren Squires
Linguistics Program
University of Virginia
***
http://polyglotconspiracy.net
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