Nerdview

2014-12-27 — 2023-05-23

Wherein the phenomenon of specialised jargon is observed in public communications, and NSW tram warning signage and a government travel agent’s baffling help pages are documented, noting a QBT→CMT name change.

language

Figure 1: This is how the NSW government said “watch out for trams” in 2019.

A term coined by Language log to describe when specialists use jargon in public, oblivious to the fact that normal humans will have no way of understanding it.

This page exists so I can document cute examples of nerdview.

Figure 2: 05/2023: QBT is the monopoly travel agent for all Australian government travel. Their perfunctory attempt at usability provides many fine examples of baffling nerdview, but the crowning achievement is perhaps the surly “help” page. You would like help, user? Please, *read carefully* how you can go fuck yourself. You may be left with the following questions: Who is “Cytric”? Can he help me with QBT? Why is he a limitation? Does Cytric know he is being talked about in this fashion? Why is there not basic information here about Cytric’s fraught collegial relations? A delicious detail about this chaos is that QBT have recently changed their name from *QBT* to *CMT*, but apparently have been unable to change the logo. It is not good at websites, this business. Disclaimer: My statement of the objective fact that the QBT/CMT service is not competently engineered to modern usability expectations should not be taken as an informed evaluation of the wisdom of the *overall* decision that our government made in entering into a contractual relationship with QBT/CMT. It is possible that low quality of the service from the perspective of people who need to travel could be compensated by some positive quality for some other category of users of which I am unaware, which quality totally makes up for the cost in confusion, wasted time and general aggravation. Who knows? This is not for me to judge.