Monday Noon: Technical Vocabulary Deep Dive

Welcome to your noon English session! Today we go deep into the words and phrases that show up every day in code reviews, pull requests, and Slack threads. Mastering this vocabulary will make you sound natural and confident with your international teammates.

Word of the Day: triage /ˈtriːɑːʒ/

Vietnamese: phân loại ưu tiên / sàng lọc vấn đề

Originally from medicine (sorting patients by urgency), “triage” is now widely used in software engineering to describe prioritizing bugs, tasks, or issues.

Pronunciation resources:

Professional Examples

  1. Bug tracking:

    “We need to triage the 47 open issues before the sprint planning meeting — some of these are months old.”

  2. Slack message:

    “Hey team, can someone help me triage the alerts from last night’s deploy? I’m seeing a mix of critical errors and false positives.”

  3. Sprint planning:

    “The PM asked us to triage the backlog so we only pull in items that are truly blocking users this sprint.”

Vocabulary Table: Code Review & PR Phrases

PhrasePronunciationVietnamese MeaningReal-World Example
nitpick/ˈnɪtpɪk/chỉ ra lỗi nhỏ không quan trọng”Nitpick: rename this variable d to durationMs for clarity.”
LGTM/ɛl dʒiː tiː ɛm/”Looks Good To Me” — tôi đồng ý merge”Tested locally, LGTM! Approving now.”
blocking / non-blocking/ˈblɒkɪŋ/blocking: vấn đề phải xử lý trước khi merge; non-blocking: không cần”This is a blocking issue — the API will return 500 in production. The styling comment is non-blocking.”
address the comment/əˈdrɛs/xử lý / phản hồi comment từ reviewer”I’ve addressed all your comments. Please take another look when you have a moment.”
out of scope/aʊt əv skəʊp/ngoài phạm vi task hiện tại”Refactoring the entire auth module is out of scope for this PR. Let’s open a separate ticket.”

Deeper Notes

nitpick — Use this label when your comment is stylistic or minor and you want to signal the author should not feel pressured to change it. It keeps feedback kind and proportional.

blocking vs non-blocking — In PR reviews, being explicit saves time. If you write “blocking:”, the author knows they must fix it before merge. “Non-blocking:” means it’s a suggestion they can take or leave.

address the comment — The verb “address” here means “deal with” or “respond to.” You address a comment by either making the change, pushing back with a reason, or acknowledging it as out of scope.

Pronunciation Guide

Practice Sentence

“Let’s triage these bugs before we close the sprint.”

Phonetic breakdown:

WordIPAStressTip
Let’s/lɛts/—Contraction, short and crisp
tri·age/ˈtriːɑːʒ/TRI-ageStress on first syllable; “-age” sounds like the French “zh”
these/ðiːz/—Voiced “th” — tongue between teeth
bugs/bʌɡz/—Short “u” as in “cup”
be·fore/bɪˈfɔːr/be-FOREStress on second syllable
we/wiː/—Long “ee” sound
close/kloʊz/—The “s” is voiced — sounds like “z”
the/ðə/—Weak form, unstressed
sprint/sprɪnt/SPRINTOne syllable, short “i”

Stress pattern of the sentence:

“Let’s TRI-age these BUGS beFORE we CLOSE the SPRINT.”

Common mistake: Many Vietnamese speakers say “tri-AHGE” (stress on the second syllable). Keep the stress on “TRI.”

Exercises

Exercise 1: Choose the Right Phrase

Read each code review scenario and fill in the blank with the correct phrase: nitpick, blocking, LGTM, out of scope, address the comment.

  1. The reviewer finds a variable named x that should be named userCount. It doesn’t affect functionality. They write: ”___: rename x to userCount for readability.”

  2. A PR is adding a login button but the author also rewrites the entire CSS theme. The reviewer says: “The theme rewrite is ___ for this PR.”

  3. You’ve finished making all the changes the reviewer requested. You write back: “Done! I’ve ___ in the latest commit.”

  4. The reviewer finds that a null check is missing and the app will crash in production if a user has no profile. They label this as a ___ issue.

  5. After reviewing a clean, well-tested PR with no issues, the reviewer types: “Tested on staging. ___! Merging.”

Show Answers
  1. Nitpick — It’s a minor style issue with no functional impact.
  2. out of scope — The PR has a defined purpose; rewriting the CSS theme goes beyond it.
  3. addressed the comment (or “addressed all your comments”) — You’re reporting that the feedback has been handled.
  4. blocking — A crash in production is a critical issue that must be fixed before merge.
  5. LGTM — Standard approval shorthand when everything looks good.

Exercise 2: Translate Tech Team Messages

Translate these Vietnamese messages into natural English using today’s vocabulary.

  1. “Mình cần sàng lọc các bug trước khi demo với khách hàng chiều nay.”

  2. “Comment của reviewer về tên biến là không quan trọng, nhưng cái thiếu null check kia là phải fix trước khi merge.”

  3. “Tôi đã xử lý hết các phản hồi rồi, bạn có thể review lại không?”

Show Answers

  1. “We need to triage the bugs before the client demo this afternoon.” (Or: “Let’s triage the open bugs before this afternoon’s demo.”)

  2. “The reviewer’s comment about the variable name is a nitpick, but the missing null check is blocking — we need to fix that before we can merge.”

  3. “I’ve addressed all the comments. Could you take another look?” (Or: “All your comments have been addressed. Please review when you get a chance.”)

Idiom of the Day: “low-hanging fruit”

Vietnamese: những việc dễ làm, kết quả nhanh (literally: trái cây thấp — dễ hái)

This idiom describes tasks that are easy to complete and deliver quick, visible value — like fruit hanging low on a tree that you can grab without a ladder.

Examples in Engineering Planning

  1. Sprint kickoff:

    “We have a lot of tech debt to tackle, but let’s start with the low-hanging fruit — fixing the broken unit tests and updating the outdated dependencies. Those are quick wins that will unblock the rest of the team.”

  2. Backlog triage:

    “When we triage the backlog, let’s flag the low-hanging fruit so junior devs can pick them up and build momentum while seniors focus on the blocking architectural issues.”

Mini Dialogue: PR Review on Slack

Scenario: Developer (Minh) opens a PR to add a loading spinner. Senior (Sarah) reviews it.

Sarah: Hey Minh, I reviewed your PR. LGTM overall — nice, clean implementation!

Minh: Thanks! Any comments I need to address before you approve?

Sarah: Just one blocking issue: the spinner doesn’t show when the network is offline. It needs to handle that edge case before we merge.

Minh: Got it. I’ll fix that now. The null check you mentioned earlier — is that blocking too?

Sarah: No, that one’s a nitpick. Non-blocking. Your call if you want to fix it in this PR or a follow-up.

Minh: Okay, I’ll address the blocking comment now and open a ticket for the nitpick — it feels out of scope for this PR anyway.

Sarah: Perfect. Tag me when it’s ready!

Noon Challenge

Write a fake code review comment in English using at least 2 of today’s vocabulary words.

Try to write 3 lines that a real senior engineer might leave on a pull request. Be specific — mention a file, function name, or behaviour.

Example answer (don’t peek until you’ve tried!):

Show Example Answer

“Blocking: The fetchUserData() function doesn’t handle a 401 response — it’ll crash silently for unauthenticated users in production. We need to address this before merge.

Nitpick: The variable res could be renamed userResponse for clarity. Non-blocking, but worth cleaning up.

Once the auth handling is fixed, this PR looks solid — great work keeping the changes scoped!”

(Uses: blocking, nitpick, non-blocking, address, scoped / out of scope concept)

Quick Review

Today you learned:

  • triage /ˈtriːɑːʒ/ — to sort and prioritize issues by urgency
  • nitpick — flag a minor, non-critical issue in a review
  • LGTM — “Looks Good To Me,” standard PR approval shorthand
  • blocking / non-blocking — must-fix vs optional in PR context
  • address the comment — respond to or resolve reviewer feedback
  • out of scope — beyond the defined purpose of the current task
  • low-hanging fruit — easy tasks with quick, visible results

See you this evening for the practice and role-play session! 🎯

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