back to article We're calling it: World hits peak Namey McNameface

Googly McSearchface has released SyntaxNet, “an open-source neural network framework” and an open source tool for parsing the English language called Parsey McParseface. The company hopes that Codey McCoderfaces will put the two tools to work doing Natural Language Understanding (NLU), the art of helping computers to …

  1. ChunkyMonkey

    Enough

    You're all Sheepy McSheepFaces. Stop following the flock.

    1. RedneckMother

      Re: Enough

      @ ChunkyMonkey

      "Stop following the flock."

      Glad to... get the flock outta here!

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Coat

      Re: Enough

      The problem comes when you can no longer tell the sheep from the Goaty McGoatface...

    3. BurnT'offering

      Re: McSheepFaces.

      What's the collective noun for the group of people who resort to the clichéd 'sheep' epithet?

      1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: McSheepFaces.

        > collective noun for the group of people who resort to the clichéd 'sheep' epithet?

        SheepSheep?

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: McSheepFaces.

        "What's the collective noun for the group of people who resort to the clichéd 'sheep' epithet?"

        Mattfaeces McBryantfaeces?

      4. TitterYeNot

        Re: McSheepFaces.

        "What's the collective noun for the group of people who resort to the clichéd 'sheep' epithet?"

        Ovipopulolambasticators - otherwise known as Sheptards...

      5. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: McSheepFaces.

        What's the collective noun for the group of people who resort to the clichéd 'sheep' epithet?

        Stupid Flockers?

        Actually although the phrase is annoying, it does provide a useful guide to what to ignore. Like a spam filter scoring on words like viagra, my bollocks-filter level is raised by use of such terms as, sheeple, MSM, EUSSR, New World Order (which seems to be making a comeback of late), Zionist media, a recent survey says, etc.

        1. BurnT'offering

          Re: bollocks-filter

          Don''t forget 'methinks'. One little word that means 'I am a middle-aged Daily Express-reading balding white male Faragist who drives a Dacia, thinks wifey belongs in the kitchen. David Cameron is a dangerous radical, pop music is a dreadful row, and Johnny Foreigner should be deported,

          1. hplasm
            Headmaster

            Re: bollocks-filter

            "Don''t forget 'methinks'."

            Nothing wrong with 'methinks' as such. However, almost every comment post on any forum that starts or contains the phrase "I think..." usually proves the opposite to be true in very short order, methinks.

            1. BurnT'offering

              Re: bollocks-filter

              Don't get me wrong - taking 'methinks' as a grammatical form. melikes it very much. Maybe mebes giving the word a bad rap, just because it's become a trope among Pringle sweater wearing, foaming tankard quaffing, free-marketering Brexit-bores. Mewishes it didn't themuses so that it could weuses with out us wecringes

    4. Tom Melly

      Re: Enough

      All of us? At the same time? That's not stopping, that's just a change of direction.

  2. brotherelf
    Pint

    Why stop now? It started in approximately 1957, when George McGovern became a member of the US House of Representatives.

  3. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    $X Mc$X$Y predates "Boaty McBoatface" by at least my entire lifetime, so I'm pretty sure it is not going away any time soon.

    Reality McAUUUGHSPACEPANDAS

    1. deshepherd

      Maybe time to revert to usenet and move discussions to alt.boaty.mcboatface.die.die.die

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Has anyone else seen the classic German film Das BootyVonBootface?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        If we're going to ban $Xy Mc$X$Face...

        ...let's also ban other repetitive non-sensical inanities such as "Writing! all! Yahoo! Posts! Like! This!" and DevOps ads disguised as news (although these seem to have stopped, thanks Deity McDeityFace!)

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      $X Mc$X$Y predates "Boaty McBoatface" by at least my entire lifetime, so I'm pretty sure it is not going away any time soon.

      As does the "-face" suffix for forming nicknames. I'm curious about the etymology of that, but a quick online search didn't turn up anything useful.

      (On the other hand, I did run across the etymology of "nickname": corruption of "eke name", with "eke" in its original sense meaning "supplemental". These days "eke" is most often seen in the newer sense of "scraped together", which is a misapprehension of the original usage, viz "he was a butcher but eked out his living murdering strangers".)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Daffy McAfee

    ..need i say more

  5. RedneckMother

    Hmm...

    "Boaty McBoatface was fun, but enough is enough. Or after this story. surely it is?"

    No. 'Nuff said.

    1. Len Goddard

      Re: Hmm...

      "Boaty McBoatface was fun,"

      No, it wasn't.

    2. William Towle
      Coat

      Re: Hmm...

      > "Boaty McBoatface was fun, but enough is enough. Or after this story. surely it is?"

      >

      > No. 'Nuff said.

      Maybe? I was reading about the Moly PcPhone the other day and had an irritating feeling for some time that I'd hadn't taken in all the syllables in the headline properly :(

      That said, I quite enjoyed the story about Warwick Farm naming a gelding Horsey McHorseface (and pictured it walking *straight* into the nearest bar...).

    3. Primus Secundus Tertius

      Re: Hmm...

      Looks like it's POETS day (*) at Reggie McIsterface.

      * Friday.

  6. Nixinkome

    Parsey?

    "Hey Preacher, don't use that name in vain."

    "...but I'm rooting for Eugene."

    "HuBBuNZ uHLLuH TuhM."

  7. Nevermind
    Coat

    What about.....

    Devy McDevOps, the new bling buzz bollox tool for making a pile as a "guru" of said pile?

    I'll get me coat...Pinty McPintface is 3 hours away.

  8. BarryUK

    Why spoil the fun with that Booty McBootnote?

    1. BurnT'offering

      Re: Booty McBootnote?

      What does Beyonce have to do with this?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Off Topic.

    Anyone else think that in the right hand sidebar of the comments, the bloke on the Microsoft SQL for Linux story is trying to do an impression of the bloke on the Attack! Run. WTF? story, that usually appears right above him.

  10. Lazar
    Joke

    Yes, enough is enough.

    And don't call me Shirley.

  11. BugabooSue
    Happy

    Watergate McGateface

    I hate the "gate" that is appended onto the name of almost any scandal. Now I have a new thing to get my knickers in a twist over. :)

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Happy

      Re: Watergate McGateface

      At least the "plebgate" scandal had the redeeming feature that it involved a real gate.

      What happens if there's another break-in at the Watergate building by the way? Will we have a Watergategate scandal? Or will the universe simply implode?

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: Watergate McGateface

        "What happens if there's another break-in at the Watergate building"

        'Watergate-Rebooted', of course.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Watergate McGateface

        Or a water treatment scandal.

        Water-gate.

        1. Nixinkome

          Re: Watergate McGateface

          ...if there's another break-in at the Watergate building...they'll board it over.

  12. VinceH

    "Bootnote: Boaty McBoatface was fun, but enough is enough. Or after this story. surely it is?"

    Well, it certainly is if you can't get the naming convention right - which neither Googly McSearchface nor Codey McCoderface are, though the latter is very close.

  13. Franco

    This joke should now be designated Floggy McDeadhorseface.

  14. TRT Silver badge

    Unfortunate incident...

    when I referred to the Tesco staff member who was helping pack bags at the end of the checkout using a similar derivative. I hope the Indian-looking gentleman didn't take offence. *red face*

  15. 0laf
    WTF?

    It's only one sticky key away from "Arsey McArseface".

    As it's such a shite bit of marketing I think that should be the official name.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Where did this facey mcboatboat thing start?

    Was it an immaculate conception, emergent wisdom, or what?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    right 94 per cent of the time,

    "“Alice drove down the street in her car” as an example of the challenges parsers face because one interpretation is that Alice drives down a street while driving her car. The other is that the street in question is inside Alice's car.

    [...]

    Parsey McParseface can apparently get this stuff right 94 per cent of the time, making it rather better than comparable code."

    Citation welcome. Surely only the person writing stuff like that can actually *know* what was intended.

    See also: Eats Shoots and Leaves.

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: right 94 per cent of the time,

      What was intended, sure. But only a naive intentionalist would think that's what the utterance means.

      On the other hand, only someone who really doesn't understand how language works would write something like "get this stuff right X per cent of the time".

      One of the biggest problems with Google's NLP work is that they labor under a model of language use that's hilariously oversimplified. It excludes the vast majority of actual human language use. Of course that's true of a lot of NLP research, but certainly not of the entire field, at least since computational discourse analysis became an area of study in the '70s.

  18. graeme leggett Silver badge

    Not to be confused with

    Parcely McParcelface - AKA Amazon

  19. Dave Cable

    Has anyone else noticed...

    ....that ParseyMcParseface is much more interesting if both "P"s are silent?

  20. eoink

    “Alice drove down the street in her car”

    Or Alice ran over the street in a fit of ragey mcrageface?

    1. Fred Fallacy

      Alicey McAliceface

      drove down Streety McStreetface in her Cary McCarFace?

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: Alicey McAliceface

        As it was raining she put on her Mackey McMacface.

  21. Rafael 1
    Trollface

    Pah!

    I'll trust Parsey McParseface when it can make sense of Marsy AManFromMarsface posts.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Pah!

      That's a bloody bad idea.

      The moment that humanity cracks that code, is the time that the aliens know we've deleloped sentient computers, are now a threat, and so it's time to destroy the Earth.

      Or it's a practical joke, and designed to send our nascent sentient computers insane. In which case we also lose, as we're stuck on the planet with them - while they deploy all the drones, robots and internet 'o' things crap in an effort to destroy us.

    2. Andrew Jones 2

      Re: Pah!

      "I'll trust Parsey McParseface when it can make sense of Marsy AManFromMarsface posts."

      Parsey McParseface is attempting to reach the level of understanding that humans have about sentences.... I therefore find it a bit unfair to expect a computer to reach the level of understanding whereby it can understand AManFromMars when mere humans cannot - and further..... I'll probably shit my pants when it happens because Skyne, death, destruction etc etc.

  22. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

    “It is not uncommon for moderate length sentences - say 20 or 30 words in length - to have hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of possible syntactic structures,” Petrov writes

    And that's assuming no major grammatical errors or mistakes due to "second language" issues. Given the deplorable spelling and grammar exhibited by much of the internet generation, the problem may be even worse than Petrov states. Of course, it is possible he factored that in with the phrase "or even tens of thousands."

    1. Nixinkome

      Pah!

      amanfromMars 1 may be posted by an Artificial Intelligence. If so, these posts have passed a Turing Test.

      Sorry if I'm wrong but how am I to know?

      The definite possibilities arise of chatbots talking with each other and being almost interpreted syntactically [if that is a word].

      In the meantime a good example is;

      HuBBuNZ uHLLuH TuhM

      which was not searchable until after I wrote it and yet got it from a website!

      1. Frumious Bandersnatch

        Re: Pah!

        HuBBuNZ uHLLuH TuhM was an Undertones song, no?

        1. Nixinkome
          Happy

          Re: Pah!

          Frumious Bandersnatch;

          Happens All The Time

          http://www.slashfilm.com/preacher-casting-ruth-negga/arseface-1/

          Mind The Publicity

          1. Frumious Bandersnatch

            Re: Pah!

            MMmmm. I like Ruth Negga.

            The Undertones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSdsTkqerOw

            Happens all the time /

            Its going to happen - happen - till your change your mind

  23. Danny 2

    Parsey McParseface

    As Scottish granny's everywhere used to say, "Yer arse in parsely".

    I think the English equivalent is, "I don't believe it!"

  24. Darryl

    "Parsey McParseface can apparently get this stuff right 94 per cent of the time"

    That seems to be awfully high compared to most Humany McHumanfaces I know

  25. Roger Kynaston
    Coat

    Friday and there is no

    BOFHy McBastardface

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Friday and there is no

      Or his boy-wonder sidekick Youthy McPimpleyface.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Sadly, this trend

    Has jumped Sharkey McSharkface.

  27. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Coat

    Posty McPostface

    Someone had to do it...

    I'll get my Coaty...

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hits Peak

    Have we hit peak of "Hits Peak" yet?

    1. Nixinkome

      Re: Hits Peak

      Hey World, don't hit peke Squashy McSquashface.

      Aw..

    2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Hits Peak

      I think as long as we have left-over hippies from the 1960s prophesying Peak Oil, we have something that tops up the "Peak X" phrase. (If any aging hippies are reading this, btw, the problem is not Peak Oil, the problem is Not Peak Oil. The fossil fuels (to a first approximation) aren't going to run out.)

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Im not a sheep

    So I cant get the flock out of here. But I can make like a tree and get outta here.

    BTTF joke one year late...aww sheeeit.

  30. Howard Hanek
    Meh

    Improve Natural Language?

    I remember thirty (30) years ago working on a natural language interface for a database system and all the 'problems', 'nuances', and general garbage that made it unsatisfactory. Garbage in, garbage out.

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