venta

At work, I am currently reviewing a big pile of technical documentation. Largely because no one understands it. Except the guy who wrote it, who understands it perfectly and doesn't see what the fuss is about. So I am reading, asking him questions, re-writing, asking him more questions, trying to explain to someone else, realising I don't understand at all, rinse, repeat. Everything he's written is correct, it just needs a lot more explanation and examples adding.

The writer's first language is German and, while he speaks (and writes) excellent English, he does occasionally use words in a way a native speaker wouldn't. In particular, several of us have been thrown by his describing certain objects as "contenders".

Contenders for what? we ask.

It turns out that in some cases, we might end up with conflicting objects. These objects are in contention. And a thing that's in contention? That's a contender.

Which intrigues me. A contender - one who contends - clearly is in contention. I can't fault the logic. However, I don't think that's a usage of contender which comes naturally in English.

Would any of you use contender in that way? I'm particularly interested to hear from people who might be writing (or reading) technical docs relating to things in contention :)

(I've changed it, since it confused at least three people here. I've gone for the rather more verbose "object with a conflicting ID".)

In any case, the net effect is that I have been singing Heavyweight Champion of the World on and off for two days. Which is slightly more fortunate than another colleague, who immediately associated it with Gladiators instead :)