# Is tweaking a "guy thing"?



## Nunty

I don't know. Seems to me that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is not such a bad way to go. But many people can't seem to resist the impulse to push a little here, pull a little there, turn this odd-shaped plastic job a little more to the left... to fiddle and tweak and thus try to improve whatever it is they are improving: the tuning of a car engine, the elegance of computer code, the colors of a forum 

I wonder: is this a "guy thing" or are women equal-status tweakers? Maybe it's a generational thing and I'm just no longer a part of the _zeitgeist_? What do you think? (And please explain your answers and please, please *please* do not get into a left-brain/right-brain discussion or I shall scream.)


----------



## maxiogee

Nun-Translator said:


> I wonder: is this a "guy thing" or are women equal-status tweakers?




I only ever associate the word 'tweaking' with two concepts - one is, as you suggest, making small - almost minute - changes to something in the hope of enhancing it or its performance. The other is a subject I am loath to raise with a Nun - the tweaking of Π¡ρρ£€$  
I think _both_ are guy things!


----------



## .   1

I think that this is probably a fifty-fifty thing but there would be a difference in the areas being tweaked.

.,,


----------



## liulia

What about going over the same translation three, four, five times and always finding something that could be improved?  Once in a while I get into that sort of mood where I can't let go of a sentence. Does that count as "tweaking"? Fiddling with things, endlessly - it's a dreadful feeling!  

I don't like feeling that way, which is why I'm happier when I'm working as an interpreter, in simultaneous - once the words are out of my mouth, that's it - they're gone! 

But I think you're right - I know more men than women who  latch on to little imperfections and keep trying to fix what doesn't really need fixing. Perfectionism? 

And yet - something in me also says, if I'm going to do this at all, why not do it as well as I possibly can? How "broke" does it have to be before it needs fixing?


----------



## Bonjules

Hola Sister et al,
this use of 'tweaking' being a little novel to me - are you talking about something akin to 'tinkering'?

As a species, we are natural 'tinkerers' (which is why we always find 'salvation' -no offense- in the latest gadget).
Men are predominantly cast in the role of 'tinkerers/fixers' ( I suppose I' m referring mostly to practical, physical things here) and some indeed do believe that there are subtle differences in the brain (vs the female one) in this regard (females being better at emotional/human relations (?) issues); I am not sure that this is not really the result of a cultural expectation and reinforcement.
saludos


----------



## sideburns

Just as a heads up, a lot of people refer to the taking of methamphetamine as tweaking.

As far as your question goes, I think it's just different from person to person. Some people are happy with a sloppy job and others have to have it perfect. I don't really think you can generalize that most perfectionists are male or female.


----------



## .   1

sideburns said:


> I don't really think you can generalize that most perfectionists are male or female.


I think that the general rule is that generally most perfectionists are male or female.

.,,


----------



## cuchuflete

Does re-arranging furniture (she designs, he carries) count as tweaking?


----------



## .   1

From room to room is moving.
From wall to wall is arranging.
From side to side is decorating.
From mote to mote is tweaking.


.,,
Liulia


----------



## winklepicker

We have three daughters and a son. Of the four, the only one who disassembled the clock, put a knife into the toaster (bang!), etc, was the boy. Sadly he has grown into a man with no practical skills whatever, but the early instinct was there. I think boys very often have a greater curiosity to understand how mechanical things work and to maximise their performance: the same applies to computers, hi-fi, cars - and so on. If that's what you mean by tweaking.


----------



## Nunty

I hope this isn't too long to be readable, but I thought it might be better to take advantage of the multi-quote feature than to post several times in a row. Sorry if it was a bad call. Now then...



maxiogee said:


> I only ever associate the word 'tweaking' with two concepts - one is, as you suggest, making small - almost minute - changes to something in the hope of enhancing it or its performance. The other is a subject I am loath to raise with a Nun - the tweaking of Π¡ρρ£€$
> I think _both_ are guy things!



My dear maxiogee, I knew that I could count on you to maintain an elevated, cultural level of discussion.  I might just remind you that _both_ kinds of tweaking can be done by _both_ kinds of human beings. And that, I hope, will be the end of one of those lines of thought.



liulia said:


> What about going over the same translation three, four, five times and always finding something that could be improved?  Once in a while I get into that sort of mood where I can't let go of a sentence. Does that count as "tweaking"? Fiddling with things, endlessly - it's a dreadful feeling!
> 
> I don't like feeling that way, which is why I'm happier when I'm working as an interpreter, in simultaneous - once the words are out of my mouth, that's it - they're gone!
> 
> But I think you're right - I know more men than women who  latch on to little imperfections and keep trying to fix what doesn't really need fixing. Perfectionism?
> 
> And yet - something in me also says, if I'm going to do this at all, why not do it as well as I possibly can? How "broke" does it have to be before it needs fixing?



I am a professional translator, too, and I fully understand. I had to set a limit to my fiddling.  I now do each translation, except for the biggest, in three runs and three runs only: quick and dirty, correction, polish. I am a woman, but I'm not sure if you are or not, user names being what they are. I wonder if tweaking has to do with craftsmanship, then.



Bonjules said:


> Hola Sister et al,
> this use of 'tweaking' being a little novel to me - are you talking about something akin to 'tinkering'?
> 
> As a species, we are natural 'tinkerers' (which is why we always find 'salvation' -no offense- in the latest gadget).
> Men are predominantly cast in the role of 'tinkerers/fixers' ( I suppose I' m referring mostly to practical, physical things here) and some indeed do believe that there are subtle differences in the brain (vs the female one) in this regard (females being better at emotional/human relations (?) issues); I am not sure that this is not really the result of a cultural expectation and reinforcement.
> saludos



Bonjules, I'm not sure that "tweaking" and "tinkering" are the same thing. "Tinkering" is almost a play-like activity that does not necessarily have a specified, pre-determined goal, while "tweaking" or "fiddling" means making tiny adjustments in an attempt to improve something.



sideburns said:


> Just as a heads up, a lot of people refer to the taking of methamphetamine as tweaking.
> 
> As far as your question goes, I think it's just different from person to person. Some people are happy with a sloppy job and others have to have it perfect. I don't really think you can generalize that most perfectionists are male or female.



Thank you, sideburns. I had no idea of that other sense of the word! 

I'm not sure that perfectionism and tweaking are the same thing, though.



winklepicker said:


> We have three daughters and a son. Of the four, the only one who disassembled the clock, put a knife into the toaster (bang!), etc, was the boy. Sadly he has grown into a man with no practical skills whatever, but the early instinct was there. I think boys very often have a greater curiosity to understand how mechanical things work and to maximise their performance: the same applies to computers, hi-fi, cars - and so on. If that's what you mean by tweaking.



Ah, O picker of winkles, in my family, it was I who took things apart and put them back together so efficiently that there were even pieces left over.  My brother was, and remains, bored by the physical universe. Even now that we live on two different continents I take care of his computer problems for him, sort of a long-distance, personal help desk. Our two samples-of-one seem to cancel each other out.



cuchuflete said:


> Does re-arranging furniture (she designs, he carries) count as tweaking?


No, of course not!  But once Grandma's china cabinet is in place, twitching it a millimeter to the right and then two to the left -- _that_ is tweaking.


----------



## danielfranco

I think it's pretty much due to a type of personality, the tweaking thingy, rather than due to gender. For example, some of us are more phlegmatic and minute differences leave us unmoved. We don't feel the need to tweak things. We often just buy better things.
But those "type A" guys seem to always be on the look-out for something to improve.
I also think that it also might be cultural. I mean, there must be cultures where women are simply not encouraged to take apart the carburator and tune up the car every week-end to different timings. I know in Mexico you would actually have to send out some kind of private eye to find a woman-mechanic, if you so wished to have your car serviced.
Here in the States (well, at least in my location, but it kinda figures, no?) it's also a bit unusual to find women-mechanics....


----------



## Nunty

That is an interesting point, danielfranco. Here in Israel, I have never seen a professional woman mechanic. I _once_ saw a woman taxi driver and I have heard rumors that there is a woman bus driver in Tel Aviv (not kidding). But do women in traditional societies "tweak" in other realms? I mean, once something is cooked, it's cooked. Once a garment is sewn, it's sewn. Or no?


----------



## liulia

Dear Nun-translator,

I am a woman, and a mother - and I have one of each! 
My son took one look at his first computer at the age of 13 and understood immediately, instinctively what to do. But he is not interested in fixing little details - tweaking. He has always wanted to know how things work.

My daughter couldn't care less how they work, as long as they do what they are supposed to do. But she is a perfectionist where language is concerned, and can spend hours tweaking the punctuation in a sentence till the meaning is exactly what she wants it to be.


----------



## slare

I used to participate in a very popular internet forum to do with tweaking mobile phones and I don't think I came across even one female mobile phone tweaker in over a year.
Although tweaking is essentially just a means to an end, i.e. to make a slight improvement on something, I think that for some people, for some reason the tweaking _becomes_ the end and it seems that this kind of obsessive behaviour (which is not really to do with perfectionism or even tinkering) is almost exclusive to males because (  possible slightly sexist and unscientific generalistion alert  ) I think women, as child bearers and primary child rearers, have had their brains wired differently by nature to make them more practically-minded and hence less prone to participate in _pure tweaking_, which serves no real practical purpose.


----------



## TRG

Tweaking is not so much gender related as it is gizmo related. If a woman was fixing her makeup or a man was adjusting his tie, you would never say they were tweaking their appearance even though I suppose it would be correct word usage. The word tweaking is most generally used in conjunction with adjustments to mechanical or eletronic devices. Then gender relation only comes in because guys are more gizmocentric than girls, IMO.


----------



## winklepicker

slare said:


> I think that for some people, for some reason the tweaking _becomes_ the end and it seems that this kind of obsessive behaviour (which is not really to do with perfectionism or even tinkering) is almost exclusive to males.


 
Yes! What a good description, slare. Stamp-collecting, train sets, car restoration, obsessive collecting, mobile phone tweaking... All autism-spectrum activities more typical of men. IMHO.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

slare said:


> I think women, as child bearers and primary child rearers, have had their brains wired differently by nature to make them more practically-minded and hence less prone to participate in _pure tweaking_, which serves no real practical purpose.



I beg your pardon, but this shallow and narrow male mind fails to understand how your female, therefore superior mind can say that tweaking, when done in order to improve efficiency for example, serves no real practical purpose.
Would you explain it a little better, please?


----------



## ireney

Tweaking and tinkering is fun! In my universe (privately owned and therefore  personal observations done by yours truly can be considered worth noting) the difference between male and female tweaking and tinkering has to do with what each sex (for whatever reason) considers worth tweaking and/or tinkering.
They both indulge in both activities but they have different subjects. There are some general trends (I mean what each sex considers worth the trouble) but since we're talking about a personal universe and I fall outside the general categories (in example, unless I cannot side-step something its temporary place in the middle of the room will become permanent and paintings' alignment is fine unless trying to see it straight will crick your neck) I will refrain from mentioning them


----------



## cyanista

Paulfromitaly said:


> I beg your pardon, but this shallow and narrow male mind fails to understand how your female, therefore superior mind can say that tweaking, when done in order to improve efficiency for example, serves no real practical purpose.
> Would you explain it a little better, please?



Let's not get acerbic, Paul. What makes you think *slare* is a female in the first place? 

If you care to read the above post once again then you'll see it describes how tweaking might become a goal in itself. Then it would serve no purpose other then bringing personal satisfaction.


----------



## Bonjules

slare said:


> ............................... less prone to participate in _pure tweaking_, which serves no real practical purpose.


 
Is that something that should be explored further in
'Zen and the Art of Pure Tweaking'? I like it.

As far as your definition of 'tinkering' goes, Nun - Translator, it is too narrow IMO. The 'puttering', unfocussed 'fiddling' aspect used to predominate, true (but the original 'tinkerer' was always a fixer!).
Today, I'd say, it is used more in the sense fiddling with (machinery, physical stuff, language, genetics, etc)
on order to change, improve, ameliorate (See WR #2). At least that is the intention (whether it in the end turns out that way is another question). Our brains, I think, are basically tinker-brains.


----------



## slare

Bonjules said:


> Is that something that should be explored further in
> 'Zen and the Art of Pure Tweaking'? I like it.


I'm going to write that book some day. 


Paulfromitaly said:


> I beg your pardon, but this shallow and narrow male mind fails to understand how your female, therefore superior mind can say that tweaking, when done in order to improve efficiency for example, serves no real practical purpose.
> Would you explain it a little better, please?





cyanista said:


> Let's not get acerbic, Paul. What makes you think *slare* is a female in the first place?


I'm a guy . I based what I wrote on my experiences as a reformed mobile phone tweaker (although I still attend Tweakers Anonymous meetings).


----------



## Nunty

Is there an age difference here? I wonder if we older folks see it as a gender thing and the younger ones as something else.


----------



## Venezuelan_sweetie

Nun-Translator said:


> Is there an age difference here? I wonder if we older folks see it as a gender thing and the younger ones as something else.


Well, I'm not sure... I know many 'tweakers', and so far I haven't noticed any gender/age factor being relevant regarding that matter.

My father is a tweaker, and so are my fiancé, one of my (soon to be) sisters-in-law (who's much younger than me), my closest friend (female, some 12 years older), and my former boss (female, around my age).

My (little) brother is the farthest thing to a tweaker that you could possibly think of. So were my mother, a close old friend (female, younger), and my "former" (male, much older). 

I'm a Professional Tweaker myself, and I would drive _them_ (the not-tweakers) crazy all the time, with my usual "Don't you think we could move this sofa just some _few_ inches to the left?"; "No, I don't want that washed out _lavanda_ all over my house, I clearly asked you for _magenta_!!"; "See the way you're wearing that tie, let me fix it"; "Please don't bother for _just five minutes_, cant you see I'm busy with the phone and the screwdriver?"... On and on... 

Their hating/ignoring/respecting/sharing/loving my constant tweaking would not depend on their age/gender at all, it has always been about personality... Am I the only one here who has had this experience?


----------



## liulia

According to m daughter, tweaking is something that makes boys happy -  whatever their age. 
It has two purposes; the first is to see how many things you can make an object do (whatever the object happens to be)  that it was not designed to do; and the second is to see  whether if you tweak it long enough you can make it go "BOOM!!!"


----------



## Nunty

I've been thinking about tweaking and tinkering. I tinker a lot: I opened the tower box of my computer to see how things work and I can now do most everything that people hire a technician to do. When I was younger, I learned to fix cars using the same method. Zen and the Art of Tinkering, certainly. I look at a thing, "grok" it, start fiddling and watch the results.

But tweaking, my instinct tells me, is qualitatively different. Tweaking has a goal; tinkering, in its present-day incarnation, is more exploratory. Tweaking is like applied physics, if you will, and tinkering, like theoretical math.


----------



## TRG

Nun-Translator said:


> I've been thinking about tweaking and tinkering. I tinker a lot: I opened the tower box of my computer to see how things work and I can now do most everything that people hire a technician to do. When I was younger, I learned to fix cars using the same method. Zen and the Art of Tinkering, certainly. I look at a thing, "grok" it, start fiddling and watch the results.
> 
> But tweaking, my instinct tells me, is qualitatively different. Tweaking has a goal; tinkering, in its present-day incarnation, is more exploratory. Tweaking is like applied physics, if you will, and tinkering, like theoretical math.


 
I agree. Tweaking is very purposeful whereas tinkering is experimentation.


----------



## Venezuelan_sweetie

Nun-Translator said:


> Tweaking has a goal; tinkering, in its present-day incarnation, is more exploratory. Tweaking is like applied physics, if you will, and tinkering, like theoretical math.


That's an interesting description (a non-native thanks you from the bottom of her heart, sister!  ).

Taking those definitions as a starting point, which one would be male and which one female, in your observation?


----------



## Bonjules

Nun-Translator said:


> I've been thinking about tweaking and tinkering. I tinker a lot: I opened the tower box of.......
> 
> But tweaking, my instinct tells me, is qualitatively different. Tweaking has a goal; tinkering, in its present-day incarnation, is more explratory...


I've been thinking about it too...
I think an important difference (maybe THE difference) is the time frame. Tweaking, as I understand you use it,
is making small moves/adjustments to yield immediate results. A bit like (minor) surgery. 
Tinkering, by defintion, involves a longer process und can certainly be exploratory, 
like in your case with the computer. But it would be difficult to claim that most tinkering these days does not involve a long term goal: More efficient processes, better seeds/plants, a miracle antibiotic that will kill superbugs, a 100 GB gizmo a big as your little finger...
A bit like goal-directed research.


----------



## Nunty

Bonjules, I think you and I are approaching synthesis, but we are not quite there. I guess I just disagree that Pure Tinkering is purposeful at all; I hold that it is like pure research. Tweaking probably is short-term, making small changes to yield immediate results. 

If there is a continuum with Pure Tinkering at one end and Pure Tweaking at the other, I wonder if we can just call the vast space in between "trial and error" or "scientific method" or "experimentation".

And if we are talking about a continuum of behaviors, maybe the male/female or old/young divide (if any) falls somewhere along it.

By the way, someone related tweaking to autism-like behaviors. (Ah, it was you, Winklepicker, right?) I would just like to mention thread-twiddling, a very common autistic behavior, and one that is dear to my heart as a lace maker! But nothing could be further form tweaking or tinkering than lace-making, which involves thousands of repetitions of similar movements to obtaing the final beautiful goal: thread wrapped around air.


----------



## roxcyn

I am not sure if it is a guy thing.  For example I change my room around from time to time.  I cannot stand the colors in XP so I changed it to classical mode.  I tweak XP so much because I think it uses so many resources, too.  So if you change your settings and things I don't think it is a guy thing totally.  

Pablo


----------



## .   1

Would even one person contributing to these forums even try for a split nano second try to claim that they are not a twiddler or a tinkerer or a tweaker or even a combination of all three?

I most certainly am keeping my hand down.

.,,


----------



## Venezuelan_sweetie

. said:


> Would even one person contributing to these forums even try for a split nano second try to claim that they are not a twiddler or a tinkerer or a tweaker or even a combination of all three?
> 
> I most certainly am keeping my hand down.
> 
> .,,


Maybe, that's because sister Claire Edith was probably right regarding this:





> (...) and please, please *please* do not get into a left-brain/right-brain discussion or I shall scream.


 
I definitely don't want to make a woman scream, but I think maybe those who tend to tweak/tinker/twiddle/whatever-it-is, also enjoy language discussions (is any of those exclusively -or at least, predominantly- male/female?   ). Perhaps (I only said _perhaps_, sister, I don't mean to get on your nerves) there's some brain differences between those who tweak and those who don't and, who knows, maybe we forer@s do both: tweak and discuss about tweaking. 

I mean, only _tweakers_ -or similars- could spend hours and hours in a language forum, twiddling with words, tinkering with grammar, fiddling with both in order to hide true colors (or show them), endlessly adjusting every post until reaching perfection, and even then perhaps using the edit function anyway and fixing it up just a little bit, but right after proofreading it there's something that could have been said in a different way, so maybe I should reply to this other forer@ with a new post, but I'd rather think it over before, I don't want to spend another half an hour in one single post, but please just wait a minute, this sentence is not right......................


----------



## Bonjules

Nun-Translator said:


> Bonjules, I think you and I are approaching synthesis, but we are not quite there. I guess I just disagree that Pure Tinkering is purposeful at all; I hold that it is like pure research. Tweaking probably is short-term, making small changes to yield immediate results.
> 
> If there is a continuum with Pure Tinkering at one end and Pure Tweaking at the other, I wonder if we can just call the vast space in between "trial and error" or "scientific method" or "experimentation".


 
Yes, we've come a long way, Sister.
Not only have we found Simple tweaking and Pure Tweaking, we have now 'Simple Tinkering' and 'Pure Tinkering'. While Pure Tweaking might indeed be nothing short of a profound meditative process, Pure Tinkering is quite another matter.
Luckily, we have prominent help: In his groundbreaking
study 'Critique of Pure Tinkering'(1781), Immanuel Kant
asks the basic question: Is Pure Tinkering possible? 
In tinkering too all progress depends on experience. But not all progress here is an 'a posteriori' event. Any critical analysis of tinkering must ask: Do we have something that 'a priori' drives the knowledge gained through tinkering?
Suffice it to say: Kant concludes(after considerable and deeply probing analysis) that we can do neither: 
'Absolutize' the creative ('a priori') aspect of tinkering nor limit ourselves to the tinkering driven only by experience ('a posteriori'). (sorry for trying to put this in as plain terms as possible).
It would probably go beyond the confines of this thread, I'm afraid to get into a critique of his 'Transcendental Aesthetic and Logic of Pure Tinkering', although many think that's where the real pearls are!
saludos


----------



## Nunty

Venezuelan_sweetie said:


> [...]
> I definitely don't want to make a woman scream, but I think maybe those who tend to tweak/tinker/twiddle/whatever-it-is, also enjoy language discussions (is any of those exclusively -or at least, predominantly- male/female?   ). Perhaps (I only said _perhaps_, sister, I don't mean to get on your nerves) there's some brain differences between those who tweak and those who don't and, who knows, maybe we forer@s do both: tweak and discuss about tweaking.
> 
> I mean, only _tweakers_ -or similars- could spend hours and hours in a language forum, twiddling with words, tinkering with grammar, fiddling with both in order to hide true colors (or show them), endlessly adjusting every post until reaching perfection, and even then perhaps using the edit function anyway and fixing it up just a little bit, but right after proofreading it there's something that could have been said in a different way, so maybe I should reply to this other forer@ with a new post, but I'd rather think it over before, I don't want to spend another half an hour in one single post, but please just wait a minute, this sentence is not right......................



Oh dear, I think you are right, Venezuelan Sweetie! Yikes! 



Bonjules said:


> Yes, we've come a long way, Sister.
> Not only have we found Simple tweaking and Pure Tweaking, we have now 'Simple Tinkering' and 'Pure Tinkering'. While Pure Tweaking might indeed be nothing short of a profound meditative process, Pure Tinkering is quite another matter.
> Luckily, we have prominent help: In his groundbreaking
> study 'Critique of Pure Tinkering'(1781), Immanuel Kant
> asks the basic question: Is Pure Tinkering possible?
> In tinkering too all progress depends on experience. But not all progress here is an 'a posteriori' event. Any critical analysis of tinkering must ask: Do we have something that 'a priori' drives the knowledge gained through tinkering?
> Suffice it to say: Kant concludes(after considerable and deeply probing analysis) that we can do neither:
> 'Absolutize' the creative ('a priori') aspect of tinkering nor limit ourselves to the tinkering driven only by experience ('a posteriori'). (sorry for trying to put this in as plain terms as possible).
> It would probably go beyond the confines of this thread, I'm afraid to get into a critique of his 'Transcendental Aesthetic and Logic of Pure Tinkering', although many think that's where the real pearls are!
> saludos


What can I say, Bonjules? Kant has been invoked. I bow my head in respectful silence.


----------



## Cheesee = Madness

I'm a near pure tweaker when it comes to my computer, but a normal person otherwise. My brother is a tinkerer and everyone else in my family falls somewhere in between.


----------



## Chaska Ñawi

Ah, yes, we had a lot of fun with this thread.

Unfortunately, the times have changed and it's now beyond the scope of the forums.  We must seek something else to tweak.

This thread is now closed.  Thank you for your understanding.


----------

