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Is it ok to talk about "personal PCs", in the sense of distinguishing it from a work PC? Or would it be regarded as a case of RAS Syndrome?

choster
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Golden Cuy
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    "personal PC" sounds weird, except if you write something like "work PCs and personal PCs ...". However, a good alternative may be "private PC". – Graffito Sep 21 '16 at 22:15
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    "PC" no longer means "personal computer", but rather refers to a computer that is reasonably portable by one person (ie, a "portable computer"). PCs can be "personal" -- belonging to one person -- or they can belong to some company or organization. – Hot Licks Sep 21 '16 at 22:16
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    Who's doing the regarding? And why should you care? – choster Sep 21 '16 at 22:36
  • @choster I'm mentioning in conversation to a Japanese person who teaches English as a foreign language. – Golden Cuy Sep 21 '16 at 22:44
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    @HotLicks - where is PC defined as "portable computer"? – HorusKol Sep 21 '16 at 23:32
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    @HorusKol - Several PC manufacturers redefined the term this way ca 1985. But basically "PC" doesn't mean literally "personal computer" any more than "computer" means "a person who computes" (as it used to up to about 1950). To insist that "PC" means "personal computer" is an etymological fallacy. – Hot Licks Sep 21 '16 at 23:43
  • @HotLicks Interesting - I googled for "luggable computer", and came across the Wikipedia entry for Portable computer. – Golden Cuy Sep 22 '16 at 00:28
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    You could also say, to avoid confusion, "personal computer". Expanding the acronym does by itself emphasize the personal aspect of it. – daboross Sep 22 '16 at 00:31
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    @HotLicks - from the wikipedia entry "Portable computer - Not to be confused with personal computer, a microcomputer of any portability for consumer use." - portable computers are a type of personal computer where the screen and keyboard are built into the frame. My Dell optiplex here on my desk may be portable, but it is not a Portable Computer. – HorusKol Sep 22 '16 at 01:04
  • @HorusKol - A "portable computer" is a computer which is portable. I transported my old IBM PC many times. (My wife sewed up a quilted case for it.) (And note that I did not say "Portable Computer".) – Hot Licks Sep 22 '16 at 01:46
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    It doesn't matter because the entire concept of "RAS syndrome" is based on deep ignorance of what acronyms are and what they do, and there's no grounds for considering things like that "not ok". – hobbs Sep 22 '16 at 03:16
  • @HotLicks - so you had a portable P(ersonal) C(omputer). As for those PC manufacturers who "redefined the term" - can you provide any links to support this, because the OED might be interested in a redefinition: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/PC – HorusKol Sep 22 '16 at 03:36
  • @HorusKol - "Personal Computer" is a product name chosen by IBM. Since they did not trademark it, other companies chose to use the same name, either as part of their product name or to suggest (by analogy to the IBM product) the type of the computer. Demanding that a "PC" be a "personal" computer (vs a "Personal Computer") is like demanding that french fries come from France. (And there are many things that OED is wrong about, especially in the online edition.) – Hot Licks Sep 22 '16 at 03:42
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    @HotLicks - I'm not demanding anything - I'm questioning your definition. I guess I just have to bow out, since you are more of an authority than the OED, et al. – HorusKol Sep 22 '16 at 03:58
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    All computers are portable, with the possible exception of Stonehenge. – Scott - Слава Україні Sep 22 '16 at 04:31
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    @Scott it's ... somewhat portable: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/32583/was-stonehenge-built-in-the-1950s – Golden Cuy Sep 22 '16 at 04:56
  • @HorusKol I'm with you. PC stands for personal computer. Searching for the meaning of PC, I can barely find any reference to "portable computer". The one I did find was simply a Yahoo! Answers question asking if PC stood for "portable computer". The majority of answers were no with a single "Yes" coming from a "Harvord" law student – Kevin Sep 22 '16 at 15:42
  • absolutely. no one in their right mind speaks this literally. – user428517 Sep 22 '16 at 18:05
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    As a programming professional for many years, I will say that when non-programming professionals re-define programming terms and then tell us what they really mean, we tend to get annoyed. A PC computer is a Personal Computer in the IBM PC family, which includes the many clones that use Intel, AMD, and similar architecture, not a Portable Computer. Many PC's, such as desktop and server PC's are not portable in that sense. The phrase "Personal PC" would be readily interpreted by anyone in the industry as a distinction between one I owned or used, and a public or work PC. – dlb Sep 22 '16 at 20:38

2 Answers2

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Though the word personal is repeated in the expansion "personal personal computer", the two repetitions use different meanings of the same word. The first personal means "owned or used by a specific single person" (definition 1 here), while the second indicates "designed to be used by a single person" (definition 2 here, again). Both instances are required to convey the full idea and thus are not redundant. Consider the following examples spelled out in full:

  • Personal PC: personal personal computer, (the usual case of a personal computer owned by a person)
  • personal mainframe computer (I have a Cray in my bedroom),
  • Public PC: public personal computer (a PC that is installed in a kiosk usable by anybody)
Dave
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  • Off-topic, but is a Cray a mainframe? – Golden Cuy Sep 21 '16 at 22:42
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    @AndrewGrimm any computer that causes the lights to dim when you turn it on is a mainframe – mgb Sep 21 '16 at 22:44
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    @AndrewGrimm I picked Cray as an obviously not-PC computer. The models that I'm aware of were constructed as room filling, mainframe computers. If anyone has a better example of a mainframe computer, I'm all ears. – Dave Sep 21 '16 at 22:51
  • Doc Smith's / Goldin's PCC was asteroid-filling. / More seriously, 'personal PC' is a much better option than 'personal personal computer'. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 21 '16 at 23:00
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    @AndrewGrimm Cray is generally considered a supercomputer since it's used for scientific numerical simulations. "Mainframe" has historically meant a computer used for business purposes or data processing, such as an IBM S/390. – Random832 Sep 22 '16 at 03:30
  • Crays aren't that big, maybe a cubic meter for the one's I've seen. But yes, it's not a PC. – OrangeDog Sep 22 '16 at 06:56
  • I think that for the "used by a specific single person" definition, the word "Private" would be more appropriate. – Nzall Sep 22 '16 at 12:32
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    The old Crays from the '70s and '80s, while not quite room-sized, were certainly substantial pieces of hardware, clocking in at several tons and having a diameter (they were circular) of a couple of meters. Debate "mainframe" vs. "supercomputer" all you want, but they certainly match @mgb's definition of "any computer that makes the lights dim". I'd also argue that any single computer that needs a reinforced floor fits there :P – Sebastian Lenartowicz Sep 22 '16 at 15:15
  • A mainframe I used was by sperry/univac/unisys. Big systems with separate disk racks, tape racks, floor printers, modem racks, front-end processors and stuff. All together it took a large room, but the main processor cabinet was only about say 3 racks wide, it was all the other support stuff that took a lot of space. – lsd Sep 22 '16 at 17:57
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    Typically, mainframes are designed for high I/O bandwidth and supercomputers are designed for high compute power. – Alan Shutko Sep 22 '16 at 20:11
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Like the other answer, I say that personal PC isn't redundant, but for different reasons. While PC does literally stand for personal computer, as opposed to a mainframe computer, the term picked up a lot of additional meaning over the last 40 years.

IBM's most successful personal computer line in the 1980s was called the IBM PC, and its popularity led to other manufacturers producing machines that had similar hardware configurations and were compatible with software written for the IBM PC, and thus became known as PC-compatible, so PC in general parlance came to refer to a specific type of personal computer, rather than all personal computers.

Later on (I believe late 80s/early 90s) Microsoft Windows came to be the dominant operating system for PC-compatible systems, and PC came to mean a personal computer that is running Windows. This is in part because the Intel x86 architecture that the IBM PC used more or less dominated the processor market at the time; the only significant competition was from computers made by Apple or licensed Macintosh clones, which used the unrelated PowerPC architecture.

PC still means Windows to this day, even though Apple switched to x86 about a decade ago and there are now versions of Windows that run on other architectures, like ARM. So personal PC is a perfectly reasonable construction, especially if you're referring to a Windows computer that's owned for personal use.

user2752467
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    I wouldn't say PC implies Windows, as it seems completely normal to talk about, say installing Linux on a PC. – ilkkachu Sep 22 '16 at 18:49
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    "PC still means Windows to this day". No. You can use Linux on your PC just fine. It refers to the hardware, not the software. Windows Servers usually aren't run on PCs but on dedicated server hardware. – Polygnome Sep 22 '16 at 20:40
  • I agree with you both, but it's undeniable that to many, a modern personal computer is either a PC or a Mac. PC should mean any personal computer, but read any tech news site and you'll see it used in more limited terms. – user2752467 Sep 22 '16 at 20:44