Opinion: Data ingestion and opposites

In a previous post, I discussed the way that adjectives have been replacing adverbs, and pondered about what had happened to “ly”. For example:

Drive Safe

rather than:

Drive Safely

I had quite a bit of feedback on this, both on and offline. Language discussions are always busy. But another similar trend came up in a discussion that I recently took part in.

A friend asked that if you used the term:

Data Ingestion

was the opposite:

Data Exgestion

Now I know that most words that change an in to an opposite usually use e and not ex. For example ingress and egress (rather than exgress). This means that it would be more likely to be:

Data Egestion

Given that Ingestion normally refers more to food than anything else, it’s hardly suprising that Egestion typically refers to what comes out of a backside, so it’s probably not a great option, at least in common usage :-)

Others suggested that the terms:

Data Import

Data Export

should just be used instead. While I agree, it’s interesting to note that the above terms are often used as nouns. And that got me wondering about when we started using verbs as nouns.

I never hear anyone talk about a Data Ingest, as though it’s a “thing”, only about Data Ingestion an an act. But we talk about performing a Data Import, and treating it as both an action, and the act of performing the action, yet I rarely hear anyone say Data Importation when they are discussing the action.

Language is curious.

So what is the best opposite for Data Ingestion or is the term best avoided in the first place?

2019-06-04