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I'm a software engineer (programmer). When you need to learn everything about a specific topic (e.g. a specific project, tool, process, etc. at work), I've heard it called a "brain dump". You might hear, "Since Tom is leaving, I've asked him to give me a brain dump on his project." I assume this comes from the programming world, where a dump is an all-at-once output of all the data in a particular application, database, etc. (And I assume this, in turn, came from the original 'dump' as in "dump truck").
A coworker of mine is taking on a new project and just yesterday I heard him say, "I asked Bob to give me a download of everything he knows about this."
So, I guess that YouTube and FaceBook have influenced us enough that we don't "dump" anymore – we "download".
Have you heard these terms used? Which one is more prevalent? Or, do you use a different term?
ngrams.google.com is a good place to try to answer your question, but you need to be careful. The default smoothing of 3 results in an ever increasing curve (through about 2008). Setting the smoothing to 0 results in equal maxima in 2000 and 2007. The number in 2008 is down a little from the 2007 maximum.
And, sorry, the ngram does not show results after 2008. BTW, 1979 is when the phrase started appearing in books.
Emmett
telemath said:
Thanks, Emmett.
Nifty, but not as useful searching out this specific use of "download." There was a spike in the use of "download" between 1900 and 1910. I wonder what that usage was.
If you look below the graph there are some date-ranges linked. Picking on the range of interest will give the books.google.com for that phrase and date range. Then you can look at the books (that it lets you see) and read the usage for yourself.
HTH
telemath said:
(And I assume this, in turn, came from the original 'dump' as in "dump truck").
Hm, perhaps indirectly, but I think you are on the right track with the computer connection. The direct connection would be to computer terms such as "memory dump" and "stack dump," neither of which the casual computer user encounters much any more–which would explain the term's fade in popularity.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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