Is 'Thingy' Okay When Talking LINQ?

Hey gang, I need some support here.

I'm in the author review phase of ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies. In a chapter on LINQ, an editor wants me to change 'Thingy' to "a more concrete noun".

Here's an example heading:

Narrowing the thingys with a Select clause

Wait a minute! This is the For Dummies series where you even have an icon to mark 'Technical Stuff'. Is 'Thingy' not a synonym for 'Stuff'?

What's more, we're dealing with LINQ here and especially anonymous types. Doesn't a vague 'Thingy' reference makes sense when you're letting the compiler determine what concrete type the 'thingy' is?

The real issue, to me, is my original misspelling of Thingys in the heading. It looks like it should have been Thingies.  I'll let the editors correct me on that.

Heck, let's make Thingy a keyword in the next version of VB!

Your thoughts?

Published 21 November 2007 12:34 PM by Ken Cox [MVP]
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Comments

# MikeBosch said on 21 November, 2007 03:50 PM

Perhaps they are talking about the spelling of the word?  It could be mispronounced "thin-gee"?  I would try resubmitting with the spelling as "thingie" and see what they say.  

# Denny Ferrassoli said on 21 November, 2007 04:00 PM

What about "Thingiez!!!!!!!11!11111 one one" ? or Thingamabob

# Is 'Thingy' Okay When Talking LINQ? - WebLog of Ken Cox said on 21 November, 2007 04:13 PM

Pingback from  Is 'Thingy' Okay When Talking LINQ? - WebLog of Ken Cox

# osiris209 said on 21 November, 2007 04:14 PM

I'm not sure, I don't really like the word thingy but do agree that it does fit in with the For Dummies series and style.  However, to me stuff is not a synonym for thingy...i think of thingy as "one of something" or "a something" whereas stuff normally follows an adjective, mind you so could thing...I think its just the "ee" on the end giving the loosy goosy feel your editor dislikes, perhaps "Narrowing the thing with a select cause" would be better and mean the same thing(!) really.

Anyway, bit of a waffle...hope it helps :) I certainly had some fun thinking about it!!!

# David Fauber said on 21 November, 2007 04:15 PM

Rightly or wrongly, when I hear words like "thingy" used I make the assumption that the person doesn't understand that which he's describing well enough.  But in the context of a "for dummies" book, maybe its no big deal.

# pho said on 21 November, 2007 04:42 PM

what about thingamajiggys

no wait, thingamajiggies

# Adam said on 21 November, 2007 04:46 PM

Beavis and Butthead always talked about their thingys...

# Ken Cox [MVP] said on 21 November, 2007 05:16 PM

It seems like most geeks around here accept 'thingy' as a valid 'Dummies' term even while debating its synonyms and general usage.

The spelling is an issue to be resolved by the Academy of the English Language after thorough analysis.

I still feel thingy is as strong a contender for keyword status as Me was.

BTW, I really appreciate the support! The book will be better for your input. <grin>

# Bill said on 21 November, 2007 11:37 PM

Could you just use 'Objects' (eh, probably not; it might be too confusing with the object type for the Dummies audience)?

Perhaps "Blobs" or "Data" or some other vague term for the crap? Thingies seems to work for me as a good disconnected-from-everything-else kind of term, but I guess it comes down to who gets to make the decision, you or your editors (I do think 'ie' is better than 'y' though).

# Ken Cox [MVP] said on 21 November, 2007 11:47 PM

Bill: Blobs has some merit as suitably vague. However, it sounds like you've come around to the same conclusion that Thingie (to use your spelling) is a very good way to describe the anonymous, er, thing(s).

# Arne D Halvorsen said on 22 November, 2007 04:11 AM

You could check for other names in Wikipedia:

Placeholder names or Metasyntactic variables.

Then again: Thingy (or widget etc) is just an informal word for Object, Object is just a fancy name for Thingy.

Thingy-oriented programming anyone?

(Somebody in my university course programmed a compound noun translator English-French-English - any noun not recognized became "thingy" in English and "truc" in French)

# Jim Broadus said on 23 November, 2007 06:53 AM

I would have to say that I agree that "thingy" should be considered a legitimate colloquialism; however, if I remember my English-teacher mother's lessons, the plural of "thingy" should be "thingies" :-)

I might suggest other possible words to use, as some others have, for variety, whatchamacallit, thingamajig, & duflatchi (pronounced – “doo-fla-chee”).  When you get down to it, "thingy" is much shorter unless you just want to revert back to "stuff".

# Ken Cox [MVP] said on 12 January, 2008 07:54 PM

I'd like to thank everyone for the fantastic support, and report a breakthrough for Dummies everywhere...

'Thingy' is now officially accepted in a Dummies book. The editors fixed the plural spelling so that the text refers to thingies.

I wonder if the first writer to use 'stuff' in a Dummies book had a struggle with the inertia of editors?

Anyway, the text has gone to the printer, so you'll be able to read about 'LINQ query thingies' sometime in February.

You'll find book's official home page on Dummies.com at www.dummies.com/.../ASP-NET-3-5-For-Dummies.productCd-0470195924.html.

Ken

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