They'd certainly recognize it as a form of English: the language hasn't changed that much.

They wouldn't have a clue what it was about; and it would appear to be some kind of strange dialect.

Acronyms didn't become common until WW1, but I expect they could guess from the capitalisation that I.E.E.E. has become IEEE, without knowing what it stands for.

They wouldn't know what the technical terms mean. I suspect they wouldn't recognize the metaphors of "flattening", "plateau'ed" and "pumping up": I think verbally describing changes over time as the shapes that would appear on a graph is relatively new.

Googlefu would be a complete mystery.

All you would need would be to put everything through a Jules Verne filter and voila! Complete comprehensibility to the 19th century mind. The only side effect would be that everything would read like bad steampunk, Cory Doctorow would post it to BoingBoing and we'd end up having to explain the difference between Xeni and Xenu and it would all be very confusing in the end anyway.

It would read something like this...

Why did XXXX stop getting faster about 5 years ago?
December 9, 2007 4:35 PM XXXX feed for this thread Subscribe

Why are XXXX not getting faster any more? This plot is some data I XXXX from a few sources around the XXXX. I know it's not exhaustive, but I'm looking to pick out long-term and general trends. It's clear to me that XXXX has XXXX around roughly 4 XXXX. Why?

I am aware of XXXX, and the XXXX myth, and things like XXXX speeds and XXXX sizes and instruction sets and that comparing clock speeds across XXXX isn't especially meaningful. I know that XXXX stopped pumping up the clock cycles, I know about XXXX and XXXX and XXXX and which XXXX are where in a XXXX.. I understand that despite the XXXX, actual XXXX power has continued to increase.

However, surely if a XXXX designer can run the XXXX at a faster clock, they would. Why can't they?

My understanding was that this was essentially an issue of XXXX: faster switching + fixed settle time = more current = more resistive heating.

However, someone else pointed out to me recently that this might be an issue with the XXXX time constant of the XXXX on the XXXX.

Ideally i'd like to find an article about this phenomenon from an XXXX/physics point of view, preferably from someone in the industry. Most preferable would be in a journal or XXXX publication; a trade magazine would be good too. An article in something like XXXX would be okay, but I need to cite a source and the popular press is notoriously bad when it comes to this sort of thing.

However, my XXXX is really failing me here, so any explanation or pointer to search terms, or really anything of help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I think they'd think it was about clocks. :)

It would probably be as comprehensible as a Victorian medical manual would be to you, or any specialized bit of technical jargon, regardless of age.

It would probably be as comprehensible as a Victorian medical manual would be to you, or any specialized bit of technical jargon, regardless of age.

Seconded.
I have a few Victorian era sewing books. These aren't targeted to dressmakers or tailors, just the average woman.
Even having sewn for years some of the termanology is so different I need to keep a list of explinations with it. And this is specialized technical jargon I have a pretty strong modern understanding of.

Hell, that page would be gibberish to a good many americans today. A scientist from 1880 could probably guess quite a bit of it, although it does contain too little information to actually build a CPU.

I'm guessing here, because if I printed out what I am getting from that link, it would read:

The connection has timed out
The server at ask.metafilter.com is taking too long to respond.
* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection.
* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

Parse that in 1880 technical english.

per the Victorian sewing thing -- similarly, Colonial-era cookbooks. Before measurements were standardized and recipes written in a basic format, lord help you in figuring out how to cook certain dishes. Colonial-era 'receipts' are full of instructions such as 'take the right amount of butter and mix with enough milk'.

But similarly, as regards terminology, most 19th-century coastal people would understand all manner of technical jargon about sailing ships and boats that today, people learning it for the first time find very difficult to learn and speak. Anyone living along the coast then instantly knew a barkentine from a sloop from a brig from a brigantine from a full-rigged ship, a pinky from a wherry from a peapod.

similarly, Colonial-era cookbooks.

YES! Oh my god, it's all "use the normal amount" or "in the usual fashion."
If I knew the normal amount and usual fashion why wouldn't I just make it without a cookbook?!

Shoot, even early 20th century cookbooks are tricky. Many will refer to specific sizes of packaging for items as opposed to measurements, and often those package sizes haven't existed in 40 years or more. A number 12 can? The hell you say!

Well, I can't say I knowsy a porkypine from a hezzyhoag, but I can say this muchness: when I was a rounder and wore the trousers, I could fire up a buggy with a hatpin and a hand dollop of Old Kentucky.

Course' me and old Thisby run about the peapod for the jaunt over to Haller's Kern where the jimbobble was once't the town croon. Even in those days none of the ladyfolk could mention it, lest they be outlawed with a sweater. Old Thisby and I cut a fine figure coming up from the docks wearing our entwhistles low, though.
And no mistake!