“Performant” is not a word
Well actually it is, but it’s not what you think, even though it should be.
At one point I thought I invented the word ‘performant’ as a term to mean “performs acceptably” or “it’s really fast!!” kinda like ‘compliant’. But then I noticed other people I didn’t know were using it too.
The only problem is that it’s not a word. One dictionary defines it as “a performer” like in a play. That’s clearly not what we mean, but it makes sense. There’s even a company with Performant in their name, though they don’t seem to have anything to do with high performance.
So what’s a renegade linguist to do? Just keep on using performant. Eventually the dictionaries will catch on. Hey, if Doh can make it, surely performant should have a place.
In related news, Wired has finally decided to stop capitalizing ‘internet’. Did you hear that, AP?
February 24th, 2005 at 9:11 pm
Performant is a French word that means efficient.
February 24th, 2005 at 9:23 pm
OK, so it’s not an English word. I don’t think anybody who says ‘Performant’ thinks they’re speaking French.
May 13th, 2005 at 2:59 pm
Thank you!!!
July 5th, 2005 at 5:20 am
Anyway 131000 english web pages (according to google) contain the word “performant”. To your amusement, I can tell you that italian computer geeks use the word “performante” apparently derived from an english word that does not exist.
January 2nd, 2006 at 2:45 pm
It is indeed all over the Web, and some random surfing just now shows it does crop up in white papers, if not books on database tuning. (I know some of my colleagues use it professionally.)
The BBC are currently running a series on the OED and it so happens we are on the letter “p” this week, which prompted to look into this word again - and write to the OED. Jeff, drop me an email and I’ll reply with the email I sent - only fair, since I have linked to this page…
…by the way, I hate the word, since it encourages lazy sentence construction.
February 3rd, 2006 at 7:58 am
What I find even more amazing, is that Google Scholar finds about ten thousand scientific papers containing the word:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=performant&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Search
May 1st, 2006 at 1:24 pm
I have a conservative streak when it comes to techno/business neologisms. I flinched at “proactive” for years before adopting it. I’m going to give in and start using “performant” and meaning it’s fast enough to use in a practical setting without having to wait a bothersome amount of time. I think the evidence shows that its use has become so widespread that it seems stuffy to avoid it.
May 12th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
For those, whose opinion relies on sources like Google I would like to note that Google also provides sites with ‘high-performant’ or even ‘highly-performant’ phrases. If our reality is based on sources like that, maybe we should imply that there is a ‘low permformant’ phrase. But then, the meaning would be actually what, low-fast enough? My point is that the number of web sites citing a phrase proves only that we ‘adaptable’ without truly understanding the meaning. Please consider the following, if Google returns thousands of sites with offensive phrases, should we adopt it?
June 2nd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Fortunately, as of today, Google hasn’t found “performantness” in use, but it’s just a matter of time. “Performant” is neologging into an ill-defined usage, and there are already plenty of adequate words around to tout performance (”fast” comes to mind). If anything, performant ought to mean “performs according to specification” since this concept is lacking many easy words. (”asspecced” ?)
June 20th, 2006 at 10:23 am
Amazing! I am a very well-educated and well-read senior IT professional, and I had never heard or seen the word “performant” until a potential client put it in a specification last week. I consider myself quite a word maven (read William Safire every week!). Where have I been? It reminds me of the time, about 15 years ago when, in a training class, I chastised a fellow student thus: “What do you mean data WAREHOUSE? That’s not a very meaningful term.” Btw, I am okay with performant as meaning “complying with the performance specification”. It’s kind of clever. But I’m afraid it will end up being randomly applied, and we’ll end up with a situation like we have with “out of pocket”.
September 19th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Check this out: http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/PERFORMANT
October 6th, 2006 at 2:49 am
I just had this word sent to me in a document and couldn’t find it in the dictionary, or work out what was meant from context. It came from Belgium, though, so ‘efficient’ seems the most likely meaning from the comment above. I’ve replaced it in the document. There’s no point in using words that people can’t consistently and unambiguously understand.
October 26th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
I’m a Romanian IT tech in USA, and I just googled for “performant”, that’s how I got to this page
“Performant” is a word in Romanian!. I was just getting ready to use it in a network layout descryption, saying something like “a performant tape drive”.
In Romanian, (Latin based, cousin of French & Spanish) “performant” would be somehting that describes a machine’s quality of work.
A performant consumer router would be a high end one. Performant doesn’t look at the price or brand, but at how it performs.
geez. I won’t use it.
November 21st, 2006 at 7:59 am
I recently used ‘performant’ in a database design document and it was challenged at a QA meeting.
Fair enough, it is a French word but if we can allow “ad infinitum” and similar then why should this be a problem?
November 21st, 2006 at 10:56 am
Just found this site because Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 refers to ‘more performant code’ in the installation routine splash screens. Googled ‘performant’, and found this site.
November 29th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
This word does not sound right to me.
And if I start hearing it being brandied about it will be dealt with the same as “agreeance”
Which is also not a word!
December 5th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Interesting discussion.
I do a fair amount of work in Germany and this seems to be a popular translation when speaking about acceptable performance from a software application.
Since I’ve heard it so frequently, I’ve accepted the fact that it constitutes an actual word - at least when Germans are speaking English. I’m certainly not going to correct my clients.
I must admit that I’ve not heard the phrase “brandied about” bandied about, SECTION52.
December 6th, 2006 at 2:04 am
Just read this in the book titled “Java Concurrency in Practice” by Brian Goetz - “… creating safe and performant concurrent classes.”
In this context, the word “performant” seems to mean “correct and efficient”.
December 6th, 2006 at 2:21 am
Hello,
I was just getting ready to use “performant” in my document and Microsoft Word underlined it. I decided to check with google and found this page. I must have used it already a couple of times.
I have a french background and “Performant” is OK in French. French and English share so many words with this format e.g. participant and others - I guess this is an exception but don’t why.
Anyways, I will ignore Microsoft Word’s warning and just use it - it seems people will know what I mean, that’s what matters in a technical doc.
December 15th, 2006 at 1:14 am
This is most definitely not a word. STOP USING IT, PEOPLE!
January 2nd, 2007 at 7:37 pm
The good news is that the domain “performant.com” is still for sale. Be in first, Jeff
The company “Performant” is a financial one, and their name therefore fits well with one of the uses of the word in French.
A very good reason not to use the word is that it is not well defined in English. It’s new to me and I’m pretty well read technically. I suspect it’s one of those words that consultants like using when preparing reports that are intended to impress but not inform …
February 11th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I agree with Iancea, it’s “one of those words consultants like using”. Consultants have invented most of the meaningless BS phrases in business and this is another. Funnily enough, I discovered it in a note I’d received from Bearing Point, the once upon a time KPMG Consulting. I “Googled” it and reached this site. I would never use it and I’m suspicious of those that do.
February 25th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Performant is a wonderful word irrespective of any spell checker/word nerd’s opinion.
exempli grati:
Jerk manager: Jim wtf is is up with the webservice this morning.
Jim: I told you sprocs were more performant than dynamic sql…jerk.
Clueless Analyst: Jim, the client wants to modify the requirements to accomodate their legacy vb6 com objects. What are com objects?
Jim: I rewrote all of those objects in more performant .NET assemblies…At the begining of this project…in march…it’s December…out of my cube.
Loud ass sales douche: Jimbo! have you checked out that hot ass salsa joint in the warehouse district.
Jim: what do you wan…
Loud ass sales douche: ..Chicks are like yeahhh, dudes are all Uhh, you know?
Jim: …
Loud ass sales douche:…and Milf’s man, Mi-il-lfsss…anywayz New York is moving 30,000 more units this week due to my sweeeetness so I need last years figures to compute my comish ya know?
Jim: who are yo…
Loud ass sales douche:…yeah so can you put them in an excel spreadsheet for a brotha?
Jim: Querying against the the live database would be more performant than searching through 500,000 sales records in a spreadsheet…you know, using the web app I built for sales last summer…douc…
Loud ass sales douche:…sweet, hey gotta jet do the thing for the thing buddy. Holla!
March 8th, 2007 at 11:40 am
I found this site the same google way as others when I found the “word” I have been using for some time is apparently not yet a word. As long as it conveys something that we do not already have a word for, it can become a word. To me it means “meets the requirements but without-loss-of and/or with-good performance; compliant with consideration to performance. It doesn’t have to be the fastest.
Performant SQL. A performant implementation.
March 19th, 2007 at 7:08 am
I think it’s really a word meant to elevate oneself above the IT hoi polloi. Before common adoption, it probably was useful in magazine articles, software seminars, job interviews and coffee-machine conversations; in short, anywhere it might be useful in impressing the listener.
March 21st, 2007 at 11:33 am
Glad I found this. We have a consultant that uses it all the time and it has always irked me. The use of buzz words and phrases - especially ones that aren’t real - is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
And I’m a consultant, too.
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:56 pm
I agree with this usage:
Just read this in the book titled “Java Concurrency in Practice” by Brian Goetz - “… creating safe and performant concurrent classes.”
In this context, the word “performant” seems to mean “correct and efficient”.
The definition I would like to see for performant is:
that the referant meets explicit or implicit performance requirments. When used for comparision e.g. “more performant” it implies that the totality of performance metrics and tradeoffs for one referant is valued greater then the other’s.
“more performant”
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:34 am
Users of this word lose credibility with the reader/listener. Avoid it.
April 5th, 2007 at 6:15 am
I just googled performant and ended up here. I don’t see why “performant” annoys you so much. You took participant but cannot stand performant? Too bad for you - I’m gonna use performant. Btw, I am not French (nor a consultant :P)
April 20th, 2007 at 11:56 am
I also googled ‘performant’ and ended up here. I’ve been doing engineering work for over twenty years and never used the word. My 2 cents: If a word is not defined, it is NOT a word. The use of a word is to convey a meaning and if the word is undefined, the meaning is undefined or ambiguous at best. So best practice - OK for casual use, AVOID it in formal use.
April 24th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
The beauty of the English language is that it is a living language. Dictionaries catalogue use, not define it (unlike French). Performant normally makes sense in context and so I see no reason not to use it those situations. Let’s face it - most of the stuff Americans call “American English” was an innovation!
April 27th, 2007 at 8:12 am
I don’t buy the “makes sense in context” business.
I ended up at this page because I came across the following:
“ScrewTurn Wiki is a performant and simple Wiki engine, written in C# and based on the ASP.NET 2.0 platform.”
The “ant” suffix converts a verb to an adjective. Defy -> defiant. Comply -> compliant. I my mind’s context, the sentence “wiki is a performant … engine” translates to “the wiki engine performs”. Then I must assume the author’s intent is “performs well”. I’m still left wondering “performs what well”?
I need a metric. That metric varies depending on the requirements specification. What is the implied metric for a “performant wiki engine”?
While were at it, why not the following?
“This software is the shiznitz with egregious bling. It’s da bomb.”
May 10th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Microsoft is using the word Performant too. I’m very suprised to see that word on Visual Studio 2005 (180 days trial version edition)’s installation interface. I was not sure if it is a word or not so I googled it and got here.
May 19th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
“Performant” will be in Microsoft products because you can’t find a Microsoft PM who doesn’t use it in every third sentence. It will be as useless to try killing it as teaching a dev that “setup” is not a verb.
May 26th, 2007 at 5:02 am
Performant is a word, sorry. Granted, it comes from latin roots, through French, but then what? Isn’t it so for about 40% of the English dictionary?
It is the same case of Ignorance->Ignorant, is not Ignorant a well accepted English word as well?
Get real, recognise the evidence.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:12 am
Obviously in english, words are what we make them. The problem with this silly thing is its failure to clarify a description or add content. So performant means ‘is working’ or possibly ‘works right’ or ‘works ok’. Wow! Were we so desperate for more ways to say ‘isn’t broken (mostly)’?
Bryan summed it up well. Just another way to pad out a sentence with nice noises.
Once again, illiterate weanies have dragged another content-free word into english, a language already overburdened with ways to say nothing or lie outright.
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I’m french and performant is often use in CS. O’caml for example is a performant language !
August 15th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
I have just attended TechEd here in New Zealand. The word Performant cropped up at least three times in at least two sessions by different speakers. The two speakers that I remember were both American Microsoft employees talking about their new database product.
Now while I understood what they were talking about, and why they may want to use that word in a given context, it still irked me. It is NOT a word pertaining to a measure of performance. Use of this word should halt forthwith!
My tuppence worth, anyhow.
August 16th, 2007 at 4:14 am
Got to be careful when you invent new words - each revised edition of an English dictionary has got to weigh in at less than 3kg. So, each new word you push on at this end, another one has to drop off the other end, to be forgotten, forever.
I would rather keep ‘perspicacity’ and let ‘performant’ miss the next edition, to be honest.
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:24 am
Like RandomSearcher (11/21/06) and Li (5/10/07), my first encounter with “performant” stemmed from the Microsoft marketing that appeared while installing Visual Studio 2005. I too was driven to research this “word” in Google as I was convinced it is as much a word as, for instance: “irregardless” (which unfortunately can now be found in the English dictionary). Thus I stumbled across this blog.
I find it ironic that Microsoft uses this term so prolifically in their product marketing yet Microsoft Word, their own word processing software, rejects its use (per Anselm’s post from 12/6/06). In general I like Microsoft products. However, by “evangelizing” the world to the use of “performant” it appears that once again Microsoft prematurely released a tool that isn’t as “performant” as all their hype would suggest.
I’m not sure if I agree with Bryan concerning the use of “shiznitz” to describe software’s performance but it couldn’t be any less universally understood than “performant”. Perhaps Microsoft would consider changing their marketing to say: “Our latest version of [product] is the bee’s knees.” That phrase has had sufficient time to catch on and after all, retro is “in” right?
August 27th, 2007 at 7:06 am
I have just used performant (for the first time) in a informal mail. While checking the exact meaning of the buzz-word, i found this hilarious conversation.
I have used performant in a adjective way. A performant application is an application with performance which is OK.
September 6th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I am French (from Montreal) and I often write software specifications documents. I use “performant” (since it is a french word) thinking it is also an english word. I am always wandering why the heck my word processing application always keep this word underlined. Well… now I know.
Thanks,
JL
September 18th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Got here by web search after a work colleague used perfomant and I went “uh?”
I’m now waiting for “performantize” - to make something performant. Google doesn’t reveal any uses but I’m sure it has already been used! Maybe if something can be made performant then it is “performatizable.” Or how about perfomantizability or performantization.
Oh, how I love wankspeak.
October 12th, 2007 at 5:38 am
Wow, I was also driven here because Microsoft Word underlined it. I am a ten year software vetern, and I have known the word as long as I can remember. Well, I thought so, until today. Thinking back, I first heard the word from a compiler developer about two years ago.
In that context, it seemed mean “optimized for performance”. The meaning of performance is very context dependent and somewhat subjective. Encarta’s example of performance is a “high-performance car”. Everyone understands the implied performance characteristics: accelerates quickly, high top speed, and handles well. A high-performance car must be very efficient to achieve those objectives; however, a Prius (I own one) is also very efficient, but not at all performant.
Dictionaries are always slow to catch up with our evolving language. Some people like to ride the wave; others are irked by their audacity. C’est la vie. (Also acceptable English).
October 16th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
New words come about out of necessity all the time. This is an example.
We don’t have a good, short English word which is a variant of “performance.”
And what determines if a word is really a word? A dictionary? Nope, it’s common usage that defines words. Dictionaries are simply a reflection and codification of usage.
October 21st, 2007 at 11:12 am
I just wanted to add my two cents concerning the word performant. Although not a member of the common vernacular, it certainly deserves a place in the language as it conveys a subtly different meaning than many of the terms being bandied about here. Specifically to me it implies not only adequate performance with respect to some objective but also the semblance of correct operation. I would encourage everyone to embrace this “word” when appropriate as it has both depth and brevity.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:46 am
Folks, folks .. this is a really funny conversation.
It just shows
a) that all language is / words are invented at some point, like it or not
b) there are always people who hate change and new stuff, and others who like / invent it
c) that at some point someone comes and writes down a strict definition, possibly changing the original, widespread but possibly fuzzy meaning …. and by the power of this normative definition nails down the word that was evolving freely up to that point
And, by, the way, I’m using ‘performant’in the sense of ‘powerful’, ‘fast’, or ‘well performing’.
November 22nd, 2007 at 10:49 am
The funny thing is that, working in a french environment, I thought “performant” sounded a bit odd indeed, but understood it to stand for “well performing” or actually a lot better then “well”.
having browsed through all the comments above, it surprises me that nobody came up with another english word for it and that has the same meaning. Because that’s what I am looking for…
November 30th, 2007 at 2:23 am
My team leader has just used ‘Performant’ in a report to describe the performance of an internal database. It was queried whether this was a word but based on this blog it was decided to be used. The report is released to a number of people. It will be interesting to see if anyone queries it!
November 30th, 2007 at 2:27 am
Oh yes personally I think my team leader is mad, it’s clearly not a word!
December 9th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
I find it amusing that it is not a word because it is not in the dictionary. How did all those words get in there in the first place and why are there new versions of the dictionary? English is a evolving language, I am sure that if you went back 200 years and started talking about email and internet they would think you mad for making up words… Oh and we should scrap any Latin, French, German or any other languages that have crept into common day discussions, papers, etc. as these are not words by you definitions.
December 21st, 2007 at 2:55 am
I’m amazed that this discussion has been going on for nearly three years! I wonder how many more before the dictionaries catch up and include this wonderfully polarising word. To add my $0.02, performant (for me, and where I’ve seen it used) means “operating at a preferred level of performance”.
January 25th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I’ve heard and used this word for quite a long time (at least several years) in the IT industry in the US. I started using it simply because I saw it used and nobody whinged about it. (for the record, my spellchecker on OS X underlines whinged, but that’s definitely a “real” word. Let’s face it, spellcheckers are never 100% accurate out of the box). I’m not a consultant and never have been.
I don’t usually hear “xyz is performant”, but in that context I would interpret it to mean “xyz is operating at an acceptable rate, not necessarily screaming fast, but fast enough to not be a problem”.
I usually see it in comparisons, i.e. “xyz is more performant than zyx”, which means simply that the former is capable of doing more in the same amount of time, or with lower latency, given the same operating parameters.
“Well, that’s technically possible, but it would probably be less performant than our current approach.”
And well, this is english. Much as I hate it, it is as people say, the dictionary is based on usage. I really like languages like Icelandic that fight loan words and try to keep the language more consistent, but that’s not at all what English is.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:17 am
The useful thing about a word like “performant”, particularly for consultants and marketing people, is that it has no clear definition; it’s another weasel-word, like “premier”.
Try googling for “the industry’s premier” and ask yourselves what those phrases actually mean: cheapest? fastest? most reliable? resilient? popular?
It means whatever you want it to mean, and it makes a product sound better, in some imprecise, unprovable way.
Like “premier”, “performant” means something positive and desirable but not legally binding.
I generally read it as “our legal department won’t allow us to say ‘fast’.”
April 24th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Another visitor brought here by Google….
I hear too many lazy writers out there. In the comparative case, why do we need a new way to say “X performs better than Y”? The sentence “X is more performant than Y” sounds like it’s got something to hide and actually seems to cloud the issue. Does it mean X adheres to a [nameless] performance standard more closely than Y?
Also, a few thousand hits on Google means less than nothing. It’s just a snapshot of usage, not an arbiter of it. Also, don’t conflate the addition of Latin words to the English language with the adoption of neologisms. Nobody is suggesting that the original use in English was the byproduct of a French speaker reaching for a known word to describe something in English. By that measure, we could add -ed or -est onto any word in any language and call it English. Perhaps this is why many Americans are such appalling writers and spellers. After all, they say, it’s common usage isn’t it? Although, they usually leave the apostrophe out of “it’s” in that sentence because they don’t remember the difference, and besides nobody cares, right?
Ignorance of the niceties of grammar and spelling is often thrown up as a defense of all sorts of stupidity. That doesn’t make it a noble cause.
Adopting new and interesting words will always happen. I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting it stop. But I think clear writing is the result of clear thinking. Unclear writing is, well, left as an exercise for the few who are still interested in this topic.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:26 am
Hi,
I am from Austria - not Australia
The word “performant” is a common used word in German, but I think it is not a regular word which you will find in any wordbook.
You also can say “Es ist ein performantes system” which means it is a system with good performance.
I hope I could help a little.
CU,
Johann
May 27th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
What the hell is wrong with “FAST?” or “sufficiently fast?”
There is something a renegade linguist can do when they use the obnoxious “performant” — look for me, cause I’ll be there looking to break your pencils.
June 9th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I just saw this in a message today: “a high performant content replication strategy must be employed.” What’s wrong with “high-performance,” since that’s what they clearly mean? With brazillians of words in the English language, do we really need to adopt new words that are created from whole cloth by people who are apparently unable to spell?
June 25th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
The problem with this stupid word is that it’s vague. In the original post, the author states that he thought he had coined a new word that meant performing “acceptably” or “really fast”. OK, so which is it? If someone says, “SQL Server 2008 is performant” do they mean it barely gets by or that it’s a barn-burner?
One idiot wanted to keep the word “performant” because of the word “participant.” Memo to idiot: the word you’re looking for is performer.
Other freaks wax eloquent about how English is an evolving language. Granted. But evolution should bring about the survival of the fittist terms, not stupid 1984-esque non-words like “performant”.
Un-words like ‘performant’ are the verbal equivalent of second-hand smoke: won’t kill you but sure are annoying.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:47 pm
O.K.
Then tell me, oh great community of all knowing linguists, what word should I use in place of performant in the following sentence. Keep in mind it must convey the same meaning, unambiguously, as well as be succinct.
“The system is less performant during times of high stress, as its efficient design leaves little to no margin of available processing capability.”
should I say “The system performs at a lower level during times …” or “The system has a reduced performance during times …” ???
Neither of these alternatives conveys quite the same message, is more succinct, or ‘flows’ as easily. the word is obviously needed, and not simply by lazy authors.
I’m voting to ban the word ‘keyboard’, as it is most definately an inelegant, and linguistically meaningless word. A ‘keyboard’ is not made of wood, and won’t open a lock. It did not exist prior to 200 years ago either in dictionaries or popular use, and therefore has no right to exist now. The ruling body of the english language should decide which word should be used to describe the “thingy that my fingers manipulate to choose letters” in order to create this message, and quickly, because this “thingy that my fingers manipulate to choose letters” is a somewhat cumbersome method to describe a thingy that my fingers ….
I suggest the word “pottawumpcrillipusaxigenticallator”,
Or possibly “qwertyuiop”, or the less imaginative “letterchooser”.
Why is a keyboardist someone who plays an electric piano or organ, when a typist is someone who ‘plays’ a keyboard?
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Spelunker says:
“what word should I use in place of performant in the following sentence. Keep in mind it must convey the same meaning, unambiguously, as well as be succinct.”
“The system is less performant during times of high stress, as its efficient design leaves little to no margin of available processing capability.”
The non-word “performant” is very vague in your sentence. It doesn’t help at all.
When you say a system is less “performant”, what do you mean? Do you mean that it responds more slowly? Well, then, say it responds more slowly. Do you mean that it locks up?
Then say, the system tends to lock up under stress. Does it crash? Then say the system crashes under stress.
That wasn’t hard.
One note to spelunker:
Your example sentence didn’t seem to make sense. You wrote:
“The system is less performant during times of high stress, as its efficient design leaves little to no margin of available processing capability.”
Why would a “less performant” system be caused by an “efficient design”?
July 24th, 2008 at 2:09 am
As already mentioned, performant is a french word meaning: high-performance, efficient, competitive
see:
http://www.wordreference.com/…/performant
Anyways, so is the word “performance” as well as about half of all words used in English which originally come from French (the other half have germanic roots, since English is a germanic language). So, don’t worry about it, keep using it, eventually they’ll add this one to the English dictionary as well
Cheers
July 25th, 2008 at 10:01 am
spuhler:”As already mentioned, performant is a french word meaning: high-performance, efficient, competitive”
And also, as already mentioned, many people think this non-word means “performs acceptably”. So is it just ‘acceptable’ or is it beyond acceptable and into the realm of ‘high performance’? If you want to use the French definition as a basis for the English definition, then do so. But be sure to correct all those who think ‘performant’ means merely ‘acceptable’.
September 16th, 2008 at 4:36 am
This is a thread I cannot resist.
What utility does “performant” have over existing forms?
If you value clear communication, it is a good idea to favor words which are commonly understood, using sentence structures which do not call attention to themselves.
Why say “The system is performant” and leave the listener guessing whether you meant “The system performs well” or “The system is capable of performing [at all]“? Encouraging the use of such nebulous terms only serves to alienate listeners and detract from the clarity of communication.
Until there is general public agreement on meaning, words such as performant often have a purpose contrary to good communication. Often they are designed to serve the speaker by alienating others. IT departments are notorious for this, employing complex technical terms specifically to exert power over others who know less about computers.
Let’s not add performant to their arsenal.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:39 am
I’ve used performant for a while in conversation. Now I needed to check spelling and Google linked to this site. I think I will use it even though the spell checker rejects it. The great thing about English is that it’s allowed to evolve. In England we even have versions called Hinglish (Hindu-English), Chinglish, Binglish, etc. As to using French words - since when has that been an issue, modern English contains many many words from other languages! The key thing is that people understand what you are trying to say - the context of my use of “performant” will make it obvious.
As for IT making up new words, remember IT is 50% jargon and the rest is bull !!… it’s made me a lot of money over the years anyway
Worry more about legal documents - they use words that are just like normal English words but often have a very different meaning. At least most IT specific words have to be looked up by the non-IT person.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I think that performant is not a word and I totally agree with your excellent point of view. I am a linguistics from Oxford School of Gardening!
November 14th, 2008 at 8:37 am
sorry i meant i have a degree in linguistics
November 25th, 2008 at 7:55 am
I found this because I was looking for a way to criticise someone for using the non-word in a document I was reviewing without sounding like a total cow… But god, it does annoy me. Like when people use “leverage” as a verb when in fact it is a noun. I know it’s anal but there are already enough words in the English language to say whatever you need to say, a new word would only need to come into existence to support a new concept. I don’t believe “stuff working properly” to be a new concept so “performant” is pointless.
December 15th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Words find their way into dictionaries AFTER they get used by people for long periods of time.
Maybe this helps: http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/words_in.htm
January 14th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Awful, awful word - only a complete pr**k would use it imo.
January 28th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Luke, I hope you’re being ironic, but, lamentably, I suspect you’re not.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:01 am
I’m deeply, deeply against the term. It’s next to useless for quoting since it only makes sense in context. It’s incredibly vague given how many measurements have been used for the performance of computer systems. A system is equally “more performant” if it can render more frames per second in Doom than a competitor as it would be if it uses less electricity. It’s a word that can’t stand on its own.
Spelunker will disagree but his example:
“The system is less performant during times of high stress, as its (too? -S) efficient design leaves little to no margin of available processing capability.”
Is crying out for the word “slower.” It’s a simpler word and if you need to hide behind complicated words in reports that may indicate you don’t believe your content stands up for itself. Don’t worry about simpler language and using one word instead of two, no one will mind.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Actually, I think most of you are being rather silly. This is how words enter a language: through popular usage. Not through some prescriptive set of opinions of what is and isn’t word. If you try adopting a descriptivist attitude about language, you may find it a lot more interesting. The process of neologisms entering a language’s popular vocabulary should be cool, not tragic.
I bet nearly all of you are using words in your postings that your past counterparts (even 50 to 100 years ago) would have complained about with equal vigour. Consider that for a moment.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Second what “Chill out” said. Language is fluid, and there is no authoritarian “gatekeeper” of the English language. If a word enters popular use and gradually people come to understand its intended definition, then it for all intents and purposes is a part of the language.
Don’t have a heart attack because it’s not in the dictionary — as has been said, 50 years ago a number of commonplace words in use today weren’t in there either.