Names for Governmental Bodies

1. Many countries have a legislative body the English name of which is also a common English computer term. What is that term?
2. Country A has a legislative body the English name of which is also an English term for what many people unsuccessfully try to do. (Country B's legislative body is sometimes translated to use this term as well.) What are the countries and that term?
3. Country C once had a chief executive body the English name of which is a common English computer term. What is that country and that name?

Comments

[LawTalkingGuy]

Console?

[Eugene Volokh]

Funny!

[LawTalkingGuy]

2 is Diet, not sure of the countries though.

[Aaron]

I think Japan is one of them.

[Vaclav Matthess]

You’re right – I would have said “congress.” And I think it’s Japan.

[TwelveInchPianist]

And Germany. But you’re right, Congress is better.

[Eugene Volokh]

That’s funny, too!

[ReaderY]

People are generally more successful at Congress than Diet.

[Don Nico]

Why do you think that our Congress is successful?

[Ridgeway]

I’d wager that those that are most successful at Diet tend to be more successful at Congress.

[James Pollock]

YMMV

[Al-Ghul]

Assembly for 1.

[James Pollock]

But is “assembly” a common term?

[Al-Ghul]

It is indeed a common term. You can assemble a computer, and different processor architectures use different assembly languages.

[James Pollock]

Very little programming is done in assembly language. It’s descendants of C all the way down, nowadays.

[larryseltzer]

Assembly language is the human-readable form of machine language, which is the actual bits that computer processing units execute

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Until you get down into the microcode, and for all I know, that too drives a lower microcode.

[ThomasW]

There have been multiple levels of microcode for processors. And microcode is generally written using its own assembly language.

[James Pollock]

“Assembly language is the human-readable form of machine language, which is the actual bits that computer processing units execute”

I know what assembly language is, and even how to use it. But most people do not. Which is why I think “assembly” isn’t a common term.

[Cataphract]

Besides being a short for “assembly language” (e.g. “performance critical parts of the codebase are written in assembly”), I think the term is also used on Windows to designate some types of package binaries (not my area though).

[Al-Ghul]

Is 3 possibly the French Revolutionary Directorate?

[Bill Poser]

Sort of. The French “directoire” can also be translated as “directory”, which unlike “directorate” is an English computer term. (It’s how us Unix people say “folder”.)

[Al-Ghul]

Lol Jeopardy rules, What is le Directoire?

[Bill Poser]

“le Directoire” was a committee of five that governed the First Republic, after the overthrow of the monarchy.

[Al-Ghul]

Sounds like a chief executive body to me. And they were only one of several executive committees, replacing the Committee for Public Safety, and in turn, being displaced by the Consulate.

[Eugene Volokh]

Yes, that’s exactly what I had in mind for 3 (which was the hard one on the list, I think).

[TwelveInchPianist]

“It’s how us Unix people say “folder”.

It’s a little known fact that the President could dissolve the directoire by issuing a rm -rf order.

[James Pollock]

“The French “directoire” can also be translated as “directory”, which unlike “directorate” is an English computer term. (It’s how us Unix people say “folder”.)”

Because you Unix folks don’t have a real X.500 directory in your operating system. Even Novell NetWare had one, going back to NW 4.0

[larryseltzer]

As others have said, 1 has to be Assembly. Country A is Japan (Diet). Not sure what Countries B and C are

[jdgalt1]

I believe Ireland’s legislative assembly (now something like the Dail, but I don’t know the Gaelic spelling) was once called the Diet.

[Bill Poser]

A curious fact about the Japanese Diet is that the Japanese term 国会 kokkai is most naturally translated “national assembly”. I don’t know how “diet” came to be the accepted English version.

[DRM]

I suspect it was because the Japanese during the Meiji Restoration copied a lot of their law, constitutional and otherwise, wholesale from Imperial Germany.

[Bill Poser]

I agree. That was probably the reason. So it goes back to the Holy Roman Empire “diet”, as in the “Diet of Worms”, which Prussia and then Germany inherited.

[Bill R]

Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I’m going to eat Worms.

[captcrisis]

I wonder how when many of us first read about Martin Luther and we came to “the Diet of Worms” and we thought — “eww! They made him eat worms??!” That’s how it seemed to me at first!

[Cal Cetín]

Speaking of which,

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462346/

[Cal Cetín]

1) Elbonia’s legislative body is called the Fubar.

2) Fredonia and Stanistan have a legislative body called Shit on a Stick.

3) Fakeistan has a legislative body called “have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?”

[Bill Poser]

Number three has a close relative in the computer world.

[James Pollock]

It loosely translates as “it works better if you plug it in”.

[Russian bot]

I believe English version of Lichtenstein constitution also uses term Diet

[Cal Cetín]

Fat politician in a Diet
Don’t try it
He’ll pick your pocket like a looter in a riot

[James Pollock]

See if you can work in something about your pickup truck, add some slide guitar, and you’ve got a hit country song there.

[Billy Joe-el]

Punks just jealous ’cause they can’t outwrite me

[David Nieporent]

I assume the answer to #1 is “error.”

[Jellis58]

1) Assembly
2) Japan/Diet
3) Dunno.

[Jellis58]

For 2 I think the other country might be Germany, but not 100% sure.

[jagcowan]

1. Assembly
2. Diet. Everyone knows Japan has one (Country A), but the Diet of Hungray is the most satisfying (Country B).
3. France (Country C) had a Directorie/Directory. And Ukraine had a Директорія/Directorate or Directory

[jagcowan]

While the Diet of Hungary is the most satisfying answer, I suppose the one you’re looking for for Country B is the Bundestag, sometimes translated as Germany’s “Federal Diet.”

While Germany’s “Federal Diet” doesn’t sound particular appetizing, at least it’s better than some old diet fads, like the “Dalmatian Diet,” which I’m pretty sure involved eating dog food, and the self-explanatory “Diet of Worms.”

[Doug Sundseth]

There is a country whose legislative body translates into English as a large thing. What is the country and the thing?