Zipped or zip'ed

Question

I have a little disagreement with a friend of mine. He assures me that an archive file created with a zip program should be referred to as "a zip'ed file". I believe we should use the term "a zipped file". My arguments for Google's results had no effect upon him. Why should we use "zip'ed" if we've already had the past participle "zipped"? He says he came across a "zip'ed file" at universities' websites many times. What do you think about this?

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]I have a little disagreement with a friend of mine. He assures me that an archive file created with a ... "zipped"? He says he came across a "zip'ed file" at universities' websites many times. What do you think about this?[/nq]
That's one heinous apostrophe, there. The best thing I could say about "zip'ed" is that it has absolutely no chance of catching on, since it's so bizarre. I have no idea what the people who originated the usage are thinking, unless they're trying to preserve the supposed sanctity of the program name.

"Zip'ed," in addition to being prima facie stupid, is also not quite successful in keeping people from reading "ziped"; moreover, it adds another potential mispronunciation in "zip ed," and creates the false impression of an accent mark, and who knows how that might mangle pronunciation.

Rather than preserving or drawing attention to the brand name, this frankenbastard of a term creates the impression that the Zip program is being marketed by people who can't spell.

Cheers,
Jody

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I have a little disagreement with a friend of mine. He assures me that an archive file created with a ... "zipped"? He says he came across a "zip'ed file" at universities' websites many times. What do you think about this?[/nq]
If he wants to make the distinction between something that's been zipped up and a file that's been compressed with WinZip, he should say winzip'ed, at least. But I don't see what's wrong with 'zipped.' It's not like you could confuse the two things and end up with something totally different from what you wanted.
Luca, imho

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I have a little disagreement with a friend of mine. He assures me that an archive file created with a ... "zipped"? He says he came across a "zip'ed file" at universities' websites many times. What do you think about this?[/nq]
"a zipped file" 21,600
"a zip'ed file" 28 Ratio 771:1
By the way,
"a zip file" 326,000

Best Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

Alex Bod filted:
[nq:1]I have a little disagreement with a friend of mine. He assures me that an archive file created with a ... "zipped"? He says he came across a "zip'ed file" at universities' websites many times. What do you think about this?[/nq]
I can see your friend's point; since "zip" has something of the character of a proper name, it doesn't get inflected the same way a regular word does...you don't refer collectively to Mr Berry, his wife, and his four kids as "the Berries" but rather as "the Berrys"....
My own preference for the case you describe would be "a zip'd file"...it preserves the original form of the trade name but still reflects the way it's pronounced...the people who market the program would probably have you say "a file created with the WinZip? data compression program", but normal people don't talk like that....r

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]"a zipped file" 21,600 "a zip'ed file" 28 Ratio 771:1[/nq]
The latter hits also include "zip-ed", "ZIP-ed", and "ZIP'ed". Is zip in this sense actually an acronym? Acronymfinder.com says it's merely the file extension used by the PKzip program, so there's no reason to capitalize it. If it were a capitalized acronym the apostrophe might make more sense.
[nq:1]By the way, "a zip file" 326,000[/nq]
A zip file can contain many files, each of which is zipped, so it's not necessarily the same thing as a zipped file. I suspect it's usually what's meant, though.

Ray Heindl
(remove the Xs to reply to: (Email Removed))

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Alex Bod filted:[/nq]
[nq:2]I have a little disagreement with a friend of mine. ... universities' websites many times. What do you think about this?[/nq]
[nq:1]I can see your friend's point; since "zip" has something of the characterof a proper name, it doesn't get inflected ... program would probably have you say"a file created with the WinZip? data compression program", but normal peopledon't talk like that....r[/nq]
I guess the world will little care what any of us think, but if I were being careful with words I would describe the file as a "compressed archive", since files archived with the WinZip-type compression algorithm can be
handled by programs other than WinZip. And in fact, most WinZip-type compression programs use the term "archive" in their own user-assistance material.
In casual conversation with fellow computer users, however, I would just say "zipped". Unless is was
RARed, that is.

Michael West

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I have a little disagreement with a friend of mine. He assures me that an archive file created with a ... "zipped"? He says he came across a "zip'ed file" at universities' websites many times. What do you think about this?[/nq]
Heck, I always write ZIPped.
Annoying, isn't it?

http://www.genjerdan.com/nvm/tdis/index.html
Of course it's music. It has notes in it, doesn't it?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I have a little disagreement with a friend of mine. ... universities' websites many times. What do you think about this?(snip)[/nq]
[nq:1]Rather than preserving or drawing attention to the brand name, this frankenbastard of a term creates the impression that the Zip program is being marketed by people who can't spell.[/nq]
Zip is a public domain protocol, not a brand name. The company responsible for the protocol is PKZip, not WinZip as many now think. Many pieces of software can unzip or zip.
A bigger issue is that of verbing nouns. The real verb should be compress or archive, and zip is the format. If I FTP something, what do I say in the future to tell somebody that it happened? Should I merely say that I transferred (or uploaded or downloaded) a file using FTP? With zip, it's easier because a verb already existed.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]"a zipped file" 21,600 "a zip'ed file" 28 Ratio 771:1[/nq]
[nq:1]The latter hits also include "zip-ed", "ZIP-ed", and "ZIP'ed". Is zip in this sense actually an acronym? Acronymfinder.com says it's ... program, so there's no reason to capitalize it. If it were a capitalized acronym the apostrophe might make more sense.[/nq]
PKWare referred to files as .ZIP archives, or .ZIP files. Their website uses ZIP in upper case most of the time, but is inconsistent. They now refer to the file format without the dot, but only sometimes.

Upper case made sense because when the format came out, DOS file extensions were in upper case. The filename ended with ".ZIP". Some of the platforms on which ZIP files are supported may still require the filetype or extension to be in uppercase. That's true of ZIP files stored on VM minidisks, for example. Platform differences are another reason that ZIP makes more sense than .ZIP, since not all platforms use a dot.
PKWare never used the format name as a verb, as far as I can tell. Their products, as well as competing products, will open ZIP files, extract from ZIP files, etc. It's not surprising to see a variety of choices for the verb, since many writers wanted to convey with the verb that they were creating a ZIP file, not zipping in the traditional sense of the verb.
[nq:2]By the way, "a zip file" 326,000[/nq]
[nq:1]A zip file can contain many files, each of which is zipped, so it's not necessarily the same thing as a zipped file. I suspect it's usually what's meant, though.[/nq]
That's due to the ambiguity created by Phil Katz, who could not decide between .ZIP file and .ZIP archive. Yes, it's a file, and it serves as an archive of one or more files. Technically, a ZIP file does not contain files, but contains file data for one or more files, as well as headers, descriptors, a central directory, and other data. A "zipped file" has no defined technical meaning, as far as I know, but I would understand it to mean a ZIP archive created from a file.
I would avoid any of the verbed forms of ZIP if I were a technical writer or support person, but I don't think a typical user would get confused.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Alex Bod filted: I can see your friend's point; since ... data compression program", but normal people don't talk like that..r[/nq]
I don't know if the people who work there are normal or not, but the whole point of the format is that it's public domain and they had nothing to do with its creation. Therefore, they would be better off not referring to a file in a way that implies that it's not compatible with a public domain format, or that their product will not work with a ZIP file not created by one of their products.
[nq:1]I guess the world will little care what any of us think, but if I were being careful with words ... programs other than WinZip. And in fact, most WinZip-type compression programs use the term "archive" in their own user-assistance material.[/nq]
Again, it's not their algorithm. They got it from PKware, and Phil Katz got his original algorithms by stealing them from SEA. After he got sued, he had to rewrite his software and could no longer use ARC as the archive name, so he came up with ZIP. SEA is long out of business, but back then, archives were commonly called SEA ARC files. Then PKARC came along, which became PKZIP after the rewrite.

Zipped or zip'ed

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