So the right one to use depends somewhat on the context. It's the "login page" but "you need to log in". But it's not super clear in all cases.
What do you make of "log off" vs. "log out"? I feel like I used to hear the former (and its complement "log on") somewhat often, but everything seems to use "log in/out" now.
If you're saying e.g., "I got this pdf offline", I would argue your usage is incorrect and that saying, "I downloaded this pdf","got it online", or some variant would be more accurate.
That is, unless you would consider, 'got it offline' to be an idiomatic expression for 'downloaded/retrieved-from-the-internet' in whatever region you're from. ~
"Authenticate" might be the most correct verb, although it's not very user friendly?
Both "log in" and "sign in" are anachronisms though - they're justified when you're actually signing-in-and-out of a computer system or building to log your visit, but the metaphor doesn't technically make as much sense when you're talking about authenticating the user on a website.
The evolution of the terms does let you nicely abstract away the actual mechanism of authentication for a user, which I suppose is the point.
Use "log in" and "register". Don't make me think.
For example...when was the last time you said: 'Everything is above board'
'That company needs a bailout'
'A storm is coming, we better batten things down'
'Did someone just let the cat out of the bag?'
'We better clear the deck so we can start this new project'
'This project is doomed. We need to cut and run'
'My son is an excellent student. He passed his exam with flying colors'
'They successfully used a loop hole to get around the rules'
'You better toe the line' (usually mis-spelled as 'tow the line' on the internet these days)
There are many, many more.
But then you have to remember, at one point in history, all things shipping and nautical were the high tech of its day, and for a long time period.
As for me, I'll be giving any more phrases a wide berth and waiting until the sun is over the yardarm so I can pop a beer.
The devil to pay is another cool one. From Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey Maturin series (great books by the way):
""'Why, the devil, do you see,’ said Jack, ‘is the seam between the deck-planking and the timbers, and we call it the devil, because it is the devil for the caulkers to come at: in full we say the devil to pay and no pitch hot; and what we mean is, that there is something hell-fire difficult to be done – must be done – and nothing to do it with. It is a figure.’""
Could you explain 'letting the cat out of the bag' in this context? I'm asking because I've read a different legend: Apparently on markets a few centuries ago, young pigs were frequently sold in bags. Sometimes people tried to sell captured cats as farrows in the hope the buyer would not open the bags before the deal was made and the seller far enough away. IIRC they chose cats because they sounded similar to farrows. Lacking farrows I cannot confirm that :)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Cat-o%27-...
The opposite is a Russian surname.
And the opposite of "jack in" is "jack out" :p
I wonder how consistent everyone is about using the correct antonym, and how often you end up with in/off or on/out.
Ah, hang on "I jacked you in to my pod and you obviously panicked" (about 30 mins in when the lead male character gets a 'bioport' fitted and the lead female attempts to connect her 'pod' to it). Was that it?
CP-67 ran on the 360/67, which was a 360/65 with special DAT hardware that allowed it to provide each user with their own virtual machine with its own address space.
On a side note, it was pretty easy to get the data off and reverse engineer the file format using visual basic at the time.
Was quite a fun project :)
I've heard some people use the term "Abended" for a crash, because it was an "ABnormal END" - Abend
I knew about ships' logs, but I didn't know that the word "log" originated from the use of a wooden log tossed overboard attached to a knotted rope, so that the observed speed could be entered into a book that eventually came to be known as a ship's log.
Also interesting in that manual is that each "segment" of a command (what we now call a token) was six characters, blank-padded. The 7094 had 36-bit words and 6-bit bytes.
†http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/mit/ctss/CTSS_Program...
††http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SapGOxk...
Like "useradd" on contemporary Linux.
Now you know why speed is measured in knots
(Nowadays, it's a useful measure for great circle routes, that's why it's kept)
Here's the search page for Log: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=log
[0] http://www.etymonline.com [1] at least mostly - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2580631
On the one hand you have 'log in' and that conjures up images of a mainframe computer with blinking lights (or something left in a toilet bowl), then, on the other hand there is 'sign in', that is a bit namby-pamby and reminiscent of what you do when you sign in when visiting someone in some posh office building.
We need to introduce a new word, something that has no real-world metaphor, that combines all the delights that go with made-up-words-for-programming. Recursive backronyms are great, plus the English language needs a word that rhymes with orange. There could be some real meaning to the word, as in, once '[xxx]-ed in' then your communications are certified NSA proof. Any suggestions?
With the right word we can introduce it in the programming community and, from there, it could enter into the wider audience and get into the OED.
'Sign in' is a relatively new contrivance, does anyone know what the first website was to use that? How did they invent it and get others to follow their example?
sign in, check in, clock in, log in. its all referring to a social process that is unique to that engagement between those two parties. What is performed can be widely different, so it makes sense to go to these sort of common words.
Always seemed rational enough to me!
the same kind of verbage is used in all similiar scenarios. you check in at a hotel for instance.. Check, sign, log, etc etc are all really just various words that roughly mean the same thing. Log just happens to be whats popular on the web.