One of the conceits to which technologists are prone is that ‘this’ or ‘that’ is so simple that even you could understand it. This gives us the phrase ‘idiot proof’. Which begs the question of what idiot invented the phrase “plug and play”.

The best that can be said for this weasel wording, so suggestive of seamless simplicity, is that it is better to have plugged and played than never to have plugged at all. Which is arguable.

‘Plug and play’ is a more user-friendly version of its distant semantic second cousin, recently featured here as Friday’s Phrase, ‘interoperability’. Where the latter is a creation of lexicographical lego, ‘plug and play’ is alliterative and comforting. Perhaps the only surprise is that it is not ‘plug ‘n’ play’, after the fashion established by such verbal icons as ‘Toys ‘R’ Us’.

‘Plug and play’ owes its dubious prominence to the notion that the standards that apply to code deep in the bowels of computers and peripherals are harmonious or ubiquitous. The fact that they are neither is the reason why ‘plug and play’ ought to be renamed ‘plug and pray’.

Nor is the term confined to user experiences and expectations. Network element vendors now cast the word around for its undoubted ‘feelgood factor’. Don’t mention the server downtime or collapse of network elements when a network engineer plugs and plays.

It’s just a chain of saccharine dream words. So can you all just stop using it? Plug away and play nicely, but not at the same time. Life is not like that.
Jim Chalmers