
Déformation professionnelle - _pius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Déformation_professionnelle
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dan_sim
I speak french and I can say that it's a very common expression. It is often
used in a funny way. Like if a receptionist answers the phone saying the name
of the company (like she does all day) even though she's home. She will
probably say "déformation professionnelle".

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framiere
We also use it to apologize when being rude without meaning it.

Example :

you make a remark without really thinking of it because of your professional
habits (ex: you should be doing things that way, or going straight to limit-
cases or counter-examples) that would made sense in a professional context,
but that is not acceptable outside.

You would apologize saying "I am sorry, it is a déformation professionelle"

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kirubakaran
I don't know if this counts: After a really long stretch of coding, I once
tried to drag the mouse pointer to click a physical button, CD eject button on
desktop tower, and was confused that it didn't work. In my defense, the tower
was right next to the monitor. My friend teases me about that to this day.

By the way, have any of you thought that talking to someone is interacting
with their repl?

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JBiserkov
After years of using mostly a laptop, I had to work on a crowded desk, with
only a keyboard _. After a few minutes of coding I wanted to point at sth, so
I started to fondle the desk in front of the keyboard in a desperate attempt
to use the non-existent touchpad. After the 5th time I realized what I was
doing and said to myself "profesionalna deformacia".

_ there was a mouse, but not enough horizontal space

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ovi256
I had a bad case of this when I told someone I'd like to spend 0.5 person-days
hanging out with them. Yup, I'm an engineer. Planning got to my head.

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Hexstream
Related: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect>

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a-priori
Thanks, I didn't know this had a name. I've definitely had this from playing
Tetris, but also from board games like Go and even jigsaw puzzles. I thought
it was just a quirk of my silly brain.

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framiere
As a frenchman, I use it from time to time. However I never heard it in the
US, is this saying somewhat known/used ?

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CalmQuiet
As an American with French heritage, I sometimes long for some of the fluid
eloquence that French expressions provide. Alas, we are mostly left to use
Americanism's like, "My bad."

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gojomo
'My bad' may have come to the US via basketball player Manute Bol, from the
Sudan, whose native language is Dinka. (Though, 'my bad' could mainly be an
artifact of broken English.) See:

[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002693.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002693.html)

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kirubakaran
Takeaway : Think twice before you date a hardworking urologist.

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darkxanthos
Can someone spell this out phonetically in English? I'm just learning French.
:)

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zupatol
I speak french, but I wouldn't know how to spell it phonetically in english.

However this text to speech site pronounces it very well:

[http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-
demo...](http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html)

~~~
10ren
This is off-topic, but... I wonder if you could verify for me whether the
"French-Alice" voice on that site pronounces this name correctly (please):

 _Antoine de Saint Exupéry_

I've always been curious how it's said, but whenever I run into native french
speakers, I forget to ask. I found that site a while back, but I can't judge
how accurate it is. Many thanks!

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zupatol
Oh I saw your question only today.

Alice's pronunciation is correct, but I say the name slightly difference. She
pronunces 'Ex' like ecks, while I say eggs.

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juanpablo
In Spanish is also a common expression (at least among some professionals)

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stefano
It is very common in Italian too ("Deformazione professionale").

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HSO
In German, it's "sickness" (Berufskrankheit).

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gurtwo
Unless I see a convincing citation, I strongly doubt this expression is
originally french. As said in other comments, equivalent expressions exist in
Spanish, Italian or German, where they are frequently used.

Conversely, I find interesting that very common expressions in the english
language, like "procrastination", are almost unknown in Europe (saved the UK
and IE). Spanish, for example, has the perfectly correct term
"procrastinación", but it's very seldom used.

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access_denied
Can we agree on the notion, that suffering from déformation professionelle is
generally a bad thing?

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byrneseyeview
No. Someone whose job requires them to plan ahead and think rationally might
end up carrying those traits over to private life.

It can be used pejoratively, but plenty of jobs require some very desirable
characteristics. Someone who goes into sales and ends up being cheery and
outgoing wouldn't be a disaster.

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Connardo
Cool! Another French word to overuse!

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HSO
you mean like the french version of your alias? ;)

