A discussion on the English Language & Usage Stack Exchange about things that can still be useful even if they longer function properly, such as escalators and moving sidewalks, included several intriguing expressions involving partial failure. Graceful degradation refers to the ability of a computer or network to maintain limited functionality even if part of the system fails to work properly. Similarly, fail-safe is not the same as failproof; the latter describes something “incapable of failure,” while the former describes something that won’t cause damage even if it does fail. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Fail-Safe vs. Fail-Proof”
There was a really cool discussion on English Stack Exchange about the question,
What’s the word for things that work even when they’re not working,
Like an escalator or a moving sidewalk or a moped or maybe an electric screwdriver?
You know, they don’t work exactly the way they’re supposed to, but you can still use an escalator.
What’s the term for that?
Right. The joke is that escalators become stairs, right?
Yes. Yes. And it was just an interesting discussion that was full of jargon and phrases that I loved, like fault-tolerant design.
That’s right. Yeah. Then web design, they often talk about safety failback or fallback, things like that.
Yeah, I was surprised to learn from this discussion that fail-safe is not necessarily a term that means without failing.
No, it failed, but it didn’t hurt you.
Right. I didn’t realize that that was another sense of fail-safe.
I thought it meant that it would never fail.
And the other term that I really liked was graceful degradation.
Oh, yeah.
And that’s the ability of a computer, machine, or electronic system or network to maintain limited functionality, even when a large portion has been destroyed or rendered inoperative.
Graceful degradation.
And some of those don’t really cover the point.
The point is that it can still do the job, but it doesn’t do it as efficiently or as effectively.
A lot of times these hunt for the word.
I need one word.
I need a really brief.
What they’re really looking for is elegance.
They want something that sticks.
They don’t want jargon.
And they don’t want, because there might be a perfectly serviceable word, but like it’s boring or it just sounds like something that you would get out of a business journal and not something you’d use every day like in the kitchen.
Yeah, elegance is a good word.
I always think of it as poetry.
Yeah, something poetic, right?
Yeah, and I think graceful degradation.
I don’t know.
That should be in a poem someplace.
Maybe, but degradation’s got that Latin feeling to it and sometimes there’s a strike against a word.
I think graceful degradation.
Maybe.
Well, if you’ve got a word for that, what is a word from your reading or something that you’ve found that can apply to a tool or a device that still works for its purpose even though it’s broken?
