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gadders 4 hours ago

Love the word "boffin". I think we should use "pundit" more often as well.

mellosouls an hour ago | parent | next [-]

TheRegister - like, say Viz - likes its lazy, outdated journalistic stereotypes and tropes.

That's not being critical of them; its their humour, they mimic the crassness and condescension of tabloid journalism, particularly that of the 70s and 80s (even tabloids have moved on).

When you see cliches like boffin, nanny state, egghead etc etc in a HN title, you can be reasonably confident its El Reg.

Anthony-G 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As soon as I saw this word, I guessed that El Reg was the source.

happytoexplain 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I was surprised to see it - I thought "boffin" was good-natured but highly irreverent, like "nerd". But I can't imagine any publication writing the headline, "Computer nerd claims Microsoft's supposed quantum leap does not compute."

wiml 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"Good natured but highly irreverent" is pretty much The Register's house style.

gh02t 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To be fair, "boffin" usually implies someone has relevant (usually scientific) expertise, but nerd doesn't. Henry Legg has the relevant credentials to give weight to his claims, he's not just some random basement nerd.

SAI_Peregrinus 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The Register is highly irreverent, as a rule.

cpncrunch 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's typical of the Register. They always use the word "boffin" for expert/scientist. It's a british word used to describe a clever person.

MobiusHorizons 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Roughly interchangeable with egg head I think, although more used and slightly more endearing.

KineticLensman an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Used in WW2 to refer to radar engineers, bouncing bomb designers etc

3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
sensanaty 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Completely unrelated but I'm always sad that Umbra, Penumbra and Equinox aren't used very often in day-to-day speech, very cool sounding words.

devin 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Also, adumbrate.