On the Appropriateness of 'Fetching'

I don't need the software I employ for merely functional purposes to be cute. In fact, as I realized today, I kind of get insulted by merely functional software trying to be cute. I was at work, attempting to locate a book for a customer. I clicked on a tool that searches the inventory of our sister stores, an act I commit several times a day. Today, things seemed to be running a little slowly, and as I telepathically told the computer to get its ass in gear so the customer didn't have to wait so long, I looked down at the bottom of the screen, to see if perhaps the usual, "searching for results..." message had changed to something like, "unable to process search at this time, try again," which happens every once in a while. What I saw instead was this, no lie: "fetching results from sister stores." What the. I actually pointed it out to the customer, telling her I didn't know computers were into fetching these days. She kind of chuckled.

What I want to know is who is the nerdy software programmer who changed the "searching" to "fetching." He needs to fetch himself a sharp protractor and impale his one and only creative brain cell.

Hypocrite, I hear some of you scream. How can you, mr. spitoutyourgum, who waxes ad nauseam about words like umpteenth and desuetude and irrigate, and urges us all to make ample use of these words in our everyday language, how can you have the pedantic, miserly gall to hector some nerdy software programmer over his modest attempt to sprinkle some poetry into his work by using the, you must admit it, pretty damn good word fetch(ing) to describe the software's attempt to retrieve the information you seek?

Well, I rebut, it's all about appropriateness, or, as I believe Heloise or Martha Stewart or Thom Yorke was the first to say, "everything in its right place." And I'm not talking about some horridly proscriptive, Emily Post type of which fork do I use with this dress kind of appropriateness. I'm talking common sense appropriateness. Tell your buddy to fetch you another beer, tell your lover you're just going out to CVS to fetch some more Cialis, tell your fellow volunteer bounty hunters you're going to "fetch that rapscallion afore he makes Hooper's Gulch and then we'll tar'n'feather and/or draw'n'quarter him, whichever 'em is meaner," but please, never tell me computer software is "fetching" information for me, like some kind of cyborg Lassie. It's just plain insulting to my, and I'm sure most sensible people's, regard and relish and damn near adoration of the beautiful English language. It's trying to be cute, which, if you hit puberty (okay, guilty, I realize the offending computer programmer I am herewith impugning might be some eight-year-old whiz kid who never gets a chance to act his age, and if so, and you can prove it, I take it all back and as penance and out of sympathy for the poor prodigy, I'll eat the page out of my dictionary with fetch on it, and wolf down the one with impugn, too, as a bonus) anyway, if you've hit and passed beyond puberty and you're still trying to be cute, you deserve to be the stick in a game of fetch with rabid pit bulls. Software, merely functional software, should just work, damn quickly, and leave the language fun and games to human beings.

But still, fetch is a helluva word, isn't it? Borderline condescending, but that just makes the use of it more of a challenge and a lot more fun. Nothing great in its backstory, an Old English word that means "to go get and bring back," rendering the phrase "go fetch" a bit redundant, but who's looking? Then of course there's the way under-used adjective, "fetching," as in "Laura Mae with that fetching smile of hers was there and Lord I almost fell into the cider bowl." Can you say about someone who's really working it that he or she has got his or her fetch on? "With that dress and those heels, ooohhhh girl, you've got your fetch on tonight"? I hope so, I think so, and I think you ought to.

And finally, I'm reminded of my fraternity days, when among the few word lovers the term "garner" gained, or, um, garnered a lot of currency for a while. I can still remember Kendall, at the dinner table, leaning over and asking me to garner him the beans. Or when you were heading down to the basement where our $.35 pop machine with the one column of beer in it resided, somebody would always call out, as he dug around the sofa for loose change, "Hey, can you garner me another Old Style?" Ah, academia.

Now if that little note on my work computer today said, "Garnering the results from sister stores," then I would have applauded; not cute, much more appropriate (the software program is much more about garnering than fetching), and giving me images of Kendall, not Lassie, running around the innards of the computer. That's a fetching vision.