| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417281 is a reply to message #417249] |
Wed, 02 November 2022 14:02   |
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Originally posted by: Ted Heise
On 01 Nov 2022 14:50:52 -0400,
Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:
> Charles Richmond <codescott@aquaporin4.com> writes:
>
>> On 11/1/2022 8:42 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
>>>> On 31/10/2022 23:56, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>>> > On 2022-10-31, Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
>>>> >>> According to Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com>:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>>>>> Any chance he wrote "perspicuous" and you guys
>>>> >>>>>> misread it?
>>>> >>>>
>>>> >>>> I've NEVER seen it, and since I regularly do fairly
>>>> >>>> well on the New York Times Spelling Bee, it must be
>>>> >>>> very rare indeed.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Ah, kids these days. You'll never see PERSPICUOUS in
>>>> >>> the spelling bee because it has eight different letters.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I clearly remember learning that word in 8th grade
>>>> >> English class in Levittown HS. (1963) Yeah, I suppose
>>>> >> I'm not "kids these days".
>>>> >
>>>> > I had never heard of it prior to this discussion. But I
>>>> > pulled out my 1966-vintage Funk & Wagnalls and there it
>>>> > was.
>>>> There are hundreds of words that are seldom used.
>>>> 'Sartorial' springs to mind.
>>>
>>> I think about 'quotidian' daily.
>>
>> I will contribute 'quincunx' and 'abecedarian'.
>>
>> Another perhaps unfamiliar word is 'parturition'.
>
> Only after a pregnant pause...
Would that be postpartumurition?
--
Ted Heise <theise@panix.com> West Lafayette, IN, USA
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417282 is a reply to message #417275] |
Wed, 02 November 2022 14:15 |
Mike Spencer
Messages: 997
Registered: January 2012
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Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
> The co-opting is now done by those who are trying to use "they" as
> a genderless singluar pronoun. What we really need is a completely
> new set of pronouns, e.g.
>
> xie (subject)
> xis (possessive)
> xir (object)
Thereby pulling undefined orthography out of thin air. How do you
pronounce those? In Nova Scotia, there is an increasing and welcome
recognition of the Micmac people whose turf this was before Europeans
snarfed it away from them. But no one other than tenured academics
knows how to derive correct (or even reasonable) pronunciation from
the orthography chosen to write Micmac words. There's no way for even
an educated and literate person to guess that Pijinuiskaq (the name
of a new park in Bridgewater, NS that replaces an ugly parking lot) is
pronounced "be-jn-oo-is-gah". Not to mention the apparently (if not
technically) gratuitous apostrophes in words such as Mi'kmaw (the now
politically correct version of the deprecated Micmac.)
> If you want to pick nits about dative and accusative cases, try
>
> xim (indirect object)
> xir (direct object)
>
> Leave "they" alone. It's plural.
Just so.
Will we soon hear about "Tasty Liberation"? No more rude "fuvgrngre", no
more intellectual evasions such as "coprophage" or journalistic
"differently dieted". It's Tasty.
Digressing, even LGBTQ is a poor choice, along the same lines as PETA
(People Eating Tasty Animals) or the Canadian Reform Alliance Party
acronym. How many people intuitively read that poorly chosen
abbreviation as Lets Go Bash The Queers?
Language is the salient, arguably the defining, attribute that
differentiates humans from non-humans. Don't carelessly (or, for that
matter, belligerently, pig-headedly) shpx it up.
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417283 is a reply to message #417267] |
Wed, 02 November 2022 14:24 |
Mike Spencer
Messages: 997
Registered: January 2012
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The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
> I was thinking of words that almost everybody never uses, because there
> are simpler better and more common ones that have identical meaning.
>
> And whose use usually indicates a desire to impress, or at least imply
> pomposity.
>
> E.g. 'Bloviate'
Noted that the words "bloviate" and "bloviator" have appeared far more
frequently than formerly since the campaign and election to office in
the US of TFG.
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417286 is a reply to message #417276] |
Wed, 02 November 2022 14:30 |
Mike Spencer
Messages: 997
Registered: January 2012
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Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
> On 2022-11-02, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> English has parallel sets of words from many sources. The biggest set is
>> Anglo-Saxon vs. Norman French, but also Latin and Greek, with a smattering
>> of other words from wherever english-speaking people have ever set foot. At
>> one point I was on a crusade to purge French from the English language, or
>> at least to pronounce them as if they were English words, like "foyer",
>> etc.
>
> The French don't have a word for 'entrepreneur'.
> -- George W. Bush
Peter, you should be able to find Poul Anderson's "Uncleftish
Beholding" on-line. It is an article on basic atomic theory written
only with words of Germanic origin. Excerpt:
The firststuffs have their being as motes called *unclefts*.
These are mightly small; one seedweight of waterstuff holds a
tale of them like unto two followed by twenty-two naughts. Most
unclefts link together to make what are called *bulkbits*.
Thus, the waterstuff bulkbit bestands of two waterstuff
unclefts, the sourstuff bulkbit of two sourstuff unclefts, and
so on. (Some kinds, such as sunstuff, keep alone; others, such
as iron, cling together in ices when in the fast standing; and
there are yet more yokeways.) When unlike clefts link in a
bulkbit, they make *bindings*. Thus, water is a binding of two
waterstuff unclefts with one sourstuff uncleft, while a bulkbit
of one of the forestuffs making up flesh may have a thousand
thousand or more unclefts of these two firststuffs together
with coalstuff and chokestuff.
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417291 is a reply to message #417280] |
Wed, 02 November 2022 16:54 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
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Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
> On 02/11/2022 17:21, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2022-11-02, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
>>
>>> ---
>>> However, in APL a polynomial can be written more perspicuously in the
>>> form +/c×x*e , which also requires no parentheses.
>>> ---
>>>
>>> Jesus, what a steaming heap of shit. :-)
>>
>> Eschew obfuscation.
>>
>
> Eschew, Eschewing.
>
>>> Why anyone reminisces about old programming languages is beyond me!
>>
>> I'm reading this in alt.folklore.computers. That's the very
>> purpose of the group.
>>
>>> The modern ones are more than shit enough to keep us busy.
>>
>> Give the old guys credit. They were building the foundation
>> of what followed.
>>
>
> I'm old. I do give them credit. I just think they did an excellent job
> of making things better, so I don't want to go back.
I’ve been happily playing around with simulations of old hardware, but it’s
funny - stuff I recall fondly as so great looks a little flat now.
--
Pete
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417296 is a reply to message #417293] |
Wed, 02 November 2022 18:59 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
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Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx> wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Nov 2022 13:54:44 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
>
>> I’ve been happily playing around with simulations of old hardware, but
>> it’s funny - stuff I recall fondly as so great looks a little flat now.
>
> Your name popped up in a place I wasn't expecting a few days ago. I just
> wish I could remember where!
>
> You might enjoy:
>
> https://computerconservationsociety.org/
>
> Note that I'm giving their next lecture, 17th November. Face to face and
> online.
>
Thanks!
--
Pete
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417303 is a reply to message #417282] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 00:39 |
Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
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On 2022-11-02, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
> Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
>
>> The co-opting is now done by those who are trying to use "they" as
>> a genderless singluar pronoun. What we really need is a completely
>> new set of pronouns, e.g.
>>
>> xie (subject)
>> xis (possessive)
>> xir (object)
>
> Thereby pulling undefined orthography out of thin air.
I suppose etymologists could argue that that's where it all comes from.
> How do you pronounce those?
I was thinking of something like zee, ziz, and zir. But don't blame
me - as far as I know I'm regurgitating something I saw back in the
'90s during the era of Political Correctness 1.0. (Today's PC 2.0
makes it look tame.)
>> Leave "they" alone. It's plural.
>
> Just so.
Thank you.
> Digressing, even LGBTQ is a poor choice, along the same lines as PETA
> (People Eating Tasty Animals) or the Canadian Reform Alliance Party
> acronym. How many people intuitively read that poorly chosen
> abbreviation as Lets Go Bash The Queers?
<snicker> I was always disappointed that someone didn't try to form
the First Unified Church of the King - or at least figured out what
would happen before it was too late.
> Language is the salient, arguably the defining, attribute that
> differentiates humans from non-humans. Don't carelessly (or,
> for that matter, belligerently, pig-headedly) shpx it up.
Language is a powerful tool for communication. Unfortunately,
for some it's instead a powerful tool for manipulation.
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417304 is a reply to message #417284] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 00:39 |
Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
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On 2022-11-02, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Nov 2022 17:43:34 +0000
> Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
>
>> One of the things I like most about modern computing is the
>> standardisation of naming, symbols, good definitions.
>
> I offer 'static' as a counterexample. It has an astonishing number
> of meanings in different computing contexts and none of them have to do
> with things not moving.
Another [counter]example is "multiprocessing". Originally it referred
to systems with multiple CPUs, but when people started referring to a
"process" as a heavyweight form of "task" - multiples of which can run
on a single CPU - the waters muddied.
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417307 is a reply to message #417287] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 02:43 |
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Originally posted by: Thomas Koenig
Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> schrieb:
>
> Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
>
>> On 2022-11-02, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
>>
>>> The modern ones are more than shit enough to keep us busy.
>>
>> Give the old guys credit. They were building the foundation
>> of what followed.
>
> So the modern ones are built on feats of Cray?
Not every development line was followed :-)
The vector computers of Cray lineage (including the Japanese ones)
had no cache between main memory and their vector registers.
Today, CPU speeds have increased vs. main memory latency that this
is no longer possible. Also, the number of operations per cycle
that a Cray did is qutie possible with any modern OoO processor.
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417308 is a reply to message #417275] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 05:05 |
The Natural Philosoph
Messages: 238
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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On 02/11/2022 17:21, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2022-11-02, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> “Gay” has taken the place of “queer,” which, to us older folks, is still
>> jarring when encountered in its older meaning such as in Victorian lit.
>> “Gay” now causes a titter (another risible word) among adolescents when
>> used, for example, in a verse about donning our gay apparel, which evokes
>> an image of dressing up for a Pride parade. One good thing about LGBT(etc.)
>
> I refer to it as "LGBTLMNOP (or whatever they're calling it this week)".
> I'll gladly adopt any unambiguous term once people make up their minds
> what it is to be.
>
>> is that it doesn’t co-opt an existing word with a different meaning. Now it
>> needs a couple of vowels so it can be pronounced as a word instead of an
>> initialism.
>
> The co-opting is now done by those who are trying to use "they" as
> a genderless singluar pronoun. What we really need is a completely
> new set of pronouns, e.g.
>
> xie (subject)
> xis (possessive)
> xir (object)
>
> If you want to pick nits about dative and accusative cases, try
>
> xim (indirect object)
> xir (direct object)
>
> Leave "they" alone. It's plural.
>
But no one uses the plural anymore, anyway,
We is all talking pidgin.
--
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
― Groucho Marx
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417309 is a reply to message #417278] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 05:08 |
The Natural Philosoph
Messages: 238
Registered: January 2012
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On 02/11/2022 17:21, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Nov 2022 09:56:38 -0700
> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> “Gay” has taken the place of “queer,” which, to us older folks, is still
>
> Not quite - gay is acceptable as a descriptive term to gay people
> and is used by them to describe themselves while queer always used to be
> offensive. Queer has now been taken up as a generic term for anyone who is
> not exclusively heterosexual and happy with the physical gender of their
> birth and is no longer offensive.
>
Queer was never very offensive.
I think gay is ,more offensive. Especially as its now been taken over
and used by the common man to means 'insipid, useless, not fit for
purpose' and generally naff..
E.g. Micrososft Windows 11 is just *gay*.
--
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
― Groucho Marx
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417310 is a reply to message #417274] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 05:11 |
The Natural Philosoph
Messages: 238
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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On 02/11/2022 17:21, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2022-11-02, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> At one time 'transconductance' was a regular part of my reading, if not
>> spoken ...
>
> I saw it as a characteristic of tubes, which aren't used much any mho.
>
Field effect transistors are. Hugely.
--
"Nature does not give up the winter because people dislike the cold."
― Confucius
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417312 is a reply to message #417284] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 06:01 |
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Originally posted by: Pancho
On 02/11/2022 18:09, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Nov 2022 17:43:34 +0000
> Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
>
>> One of the things I like most about modern computing is the
>> standardisation of naming, symbols, good definitions.
>
> I offer 'static' as a counterexample. It has an astonishing number
> of meanings in different computing contexts and none of them have to do with
> things not moving.
>
Yes, 'static' was a naming mistake, carry over from C to C++.
Fortunately, I learnt Smalltalk before C++. So internally, I have always
mapped static methods (variables etc) to the more appropriately named
"class" methods, (i.e. a method of the metaclass), as opposed to
"instance" methods.
I think most languages I know follow that more or less. What were you
thinking of that breaks this?
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417313 is a reply to message #417284] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 07:24 |
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Originally posted by: Bob Eager
On Wed, 02 Nov 2022 18:09:00 +0000, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Nov 2022 17:43:34 +0000 Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
>
>> One of the things I like most about modern computing is the
>> standardisation of naming, symbols, good definitions.
>
> I offer 'static' as a counterexample. It has an astonishing number
> of meanings in different computing contexts and none of them have to do
> with things not moving.
Well, perhaps in BCPL. A static variable is ... well ... statically
allocated. The word is not overloaded there.
--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417314 is a reply to message #417309] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 10:34 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 02/11/2022 17:21, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>> On Wed, 2 Nov 2022 09:56:38 -0700
>> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> “Gay” has taken the place of “queer,” which, to us older folks, is still
>>
>> Not quite - gay is acceptable as a descriptive term to gay people
>> and is used by them to describe themselves while queer always used to be
>> offensive. Queer has now been taken up as a generic term for anyone who is
>> not exclusively heterosexual and happy with the physical gender of their
>> birth and is no longer offensive.
>>
>
> Queer was never very offensive.
>
> I think gay is ,more offensive. Especially as its now been taken over
> and used by the common man to means 'insipid, useless, not fit for
> purpose' and generally naff..
>
> E.g. Micrososft Windows 11 is just *gay*.
>
>
Yes, that’s an odd twist of language, isn’t it?
--
Pete
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417315 is a reply to message #417309] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 12:34 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
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On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 09:08:23 +0000
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Queer was never very offensive.
People called queer used to take offense.
> I think gay is ,more offensive. Especially as its now been taken over
> and used by the common man to means 'insipid, useless, not fit for
> purpose' and generally naff..
I thought that usage had died out - I came across it about ten
years ago and haven't heard it since - whereas homosexual people will quite
happily say "I am gay".
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417316 is a reply to message #417315] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 13:56 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 09:08:23 +0000
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Queer was never very offensive.
>
> People called queer used to take offense.
>
>> I think gay is ,more offensive. Especially as its now been taken over
>> and used by the common man to means 'insipid, useless, not fit for
>> purpose' and generally naff..
>
> I thought that usage had died out - I came across it about ten
> years ago and haven't heard it since - whereas homosexual people will quite
> happily say "I am gay".
>
It may have died out. I think it was a teenageism, and they come and go
pretty quickly.
Then there are old books like _The Club of Queer Trades_ by G.K. Chesterton
(https://books.google.com/books?id=K_tKAAAAMAAJ)
and _Fanny White; Or, Gay Life of a Young Girl in New York_
(https://books.google.com/books?id=hzKKwgEACAAJ)
--
Pete
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417317 is a reply to message #417305] |
Thu, 03 November 2022 13:59 |
Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 2022-11-03, Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> wrote:
> Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> schrieb:
>
>> On 2022-11-02, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
>>
>>> ---
>>> However, in APL a polynomial can be written more perspicuously in the
>>> form +/c×x*e , which also requires no parentheses.
>>> ---
>>>
>>> Jesus, what a steaming heap of shit. :-)
>>
>> Eschew obfuscation.
>
> Stamp out and abolish redundancy!
This message has been brought to you by the
Department of Redundancy Department.
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417323 is a reply to message #417315] |
Fri, 04 November 2022 04:59 |
The Natural Philosoph
Messages: 238
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 03/11/2022 16:34, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 09:08:23 +0000
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Queer was never very offensive.
>
> People called queer used to take offense.
>
>> I think gay is ,more offensive. Especially as its now been taken over
>> and used by the common man to means 'insipid, useless, not fit for
>> purpose' and generally naff..
>
> I thought that usage had died out - I came across it about ten
> years ago and haven't heard it since - whereas homosexual people will quite
> happily say "I am gay".
>
I dunno. Not been out that much since lockdown.
--
"The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll
look exactly the same afterwards."
Billy Connolly
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417324 is a reply to message #417316] |
Fri, 04 November 2022 05:00 |
The Natural Philosoph
Messages: 238
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 03/11/2022 17:56, Peter Flass wrote:
> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 09:08:23 +0000
>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> Queer was never very offensive.
>>
>> People called queer used to take offense.
>>
>>> I think gay is ,more offensive. Especially as its now been taken over
>>> and used by the common man to means 'insipid, useless, not fit for
>>> purpose' and generally naff..
>>
>> I thought that usage had died out - I came across it about ten
>> years ago and haven't heard it since - whereas homosexual people will quite
>> happily say "I am gay".
>>
>
> It may have died out. I think it was a teenageism, and they come and go
> pretty quickly.
>
People who used it in my earshot were all young middle aged and more or
less working class.
> Then there are old books like _The Club of Queer Trades_ by G.K. Chesterton
>
> (https://books.google.com/books?id=K_tKAAAAMAAJ)
> and _Fanny White; Or, Gay Life of a Young Girl in New York_
> (https://books.google.com/books?id=hzKKwgEACAAJ)
>
--
"The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll
look exactly the same afterwards."
Billy Connolly
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417325 is a reply to message #417324] |
Fri, 04 November 2022 13:35 |
Charlie Gibbs
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On 2022-11-04, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 03/11/2022 17:56, Peter Flass wrote:
>
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 09:08:23 +0000
>>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Queer was never very offensive.
>>>
>>> People called queer used to take offense.
>>>
>>>> I think gay is ,more offensive. Especially as its now been taken over
>>>> and used by the common man to means 'insipid, useless, not fit for
>>>> purpose' and generally naff..
>>>
>>> I thought that usage had died out - I came across it about ten
>>> years ago and haven't heard it since - whereas homosexual people will
>>> quite happily say "I am gay".
>>
>> It may have died out. I think it was a teenageism, and they come and go
>> pretty quickly.
>
> People who used it in my earshot were all young middle aged and more or
> less working class.
It sounds like something a South Park character would say.
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
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X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417326 is a reply to message #417321] |
Fri, 04 November 2022 13:35 |
Charlie Gibbs
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On 2022-11-04, Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
>
>> Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> Leave "they" alone. It's plural.
>
> It’s grammatically plural, but that doesn’t stop it taking singular
> referent (just like ‘you’).
>
>> The use of they as a singular for unknown gender is old and very
>> common.
>
> Indeed.
I've long seen it used when making a general reference which covers
any number of people, and I don't have much of a problem with that.
What's becoming more prevalent, though, is its use when referring
to a single specific person - and that doesn't sit well with me.
Mind you, anything that smells of "wokeness" sets off my alarm bells.
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417328 is a reply to message #417272] |
Fri, 04 November 2022 15:15 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
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On 11/2/2022 11:56 AM, Peter Flass wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 01/11/2022 16:43, Dennis Boone wrote:
>>>> There are hundreds of words that are seldom used.
>>>
>>> The OED reputedly contains 600,000 words. I rather suspect that
>>> somewhat more than "hundreds" are seldom used.
>>>
>>> De
>>
>> Well its an interesting question. Some people use particular sets of
>> obscure words as part of their work, and use them a lot.
>>
>> I.e "atopic eczema" instead of 'allergic rash'.
>> At one time 'transconductance' was a regular part of my reading, if not
>> spoken ...
>>
>> I was thinking of words that almost everybody never uses, because there
>> are simpler better and more common ones that have identical meaning.
>>
>> And whose use usually indicates a desire to impress, or at least imply
>> pomposity.
>>
>> E.g. 'Bloviate'
>>
>
> I see, and occasionally use, “bloviate” in relation to politics. It is an
> excellent word to describe how most politicians talk.
>
> English has parallel sets of words from many sources. The biggest set is
> Anglo-Saxon vs. Norman French, but also Latin and Greek, with a smattering
> of other words from wherever english-speaking people have ever set foot. At
> one point I was on a crusade to purge French from the English language, or
> at least to pronounce them as if they were English words, like “foyer”,
> etc.
>
"American English does *not* borrow words; it drags them into an alley
and beats them senseless!!!"
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Charles Richmond
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417329 is a reply to message #417286] |
Fri, 04 November 2022 15:20 |
Charles Richmond
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On 11/2/2022 1:30 PM, Mike Spencer wrote:
> Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
>
>> On 2022-11-02, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> English has parallel sets of words from many sources. The biggest set is
>>> Anglo-Saxon vs. Norman French, but also Latin and Greek, with a smattering
>>> of other words from wherever english-speaking people have ever set foot. At
>>> one point I was on a crusade to purge French from the English language, or
>>> at least to pronounce them as if they were English words, like "foyer",
>>> etc.
>>
>> The French don't have a word for 'entrepreneur'.
>> -- George W. Bush
>
> Peter, you should be able to find Poul Anderson's "Uncleftish
> Beholding" on-line. It is an article on basic atomic theory written
> only with words of Germanic origin. Excerpt:
>
> The firststuffs have their being as motes called *unclefts*.
> These are mightly small; one seedweight of waterstuff holds a
> tale of them like unto two followed by twenty-two naughts. Most
> unclefts link together to make what are called *bulkbits*.
> Thus, the waterstuff bulkbit bestands of two waterstuff
> unclefts, the sourstuff bulkbit of two sourstuff unclefts, and
> so on. (Some kinds, such as sunstuff, keep alone; others, such
> as iron, cling together in ices when in the fast standing; and
> there are yet more yokeways.) When unlike clefts link in a
> bulkbit, they make *bindings*. Thus, water is a binding of two
> waterstuff unclefts with one sourstuff uncleft, while a bulkbit
> of one of the forestuffs making up flesh may have a thousand
> thousand or more unclefts of these two firststuffs together
> with coalstuff and chokestuff.
>
Reminds me of the English (and German) versions of "Blinkenlights"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights
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Charles Richmond
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417330 is a reply to message #417310] |
Fri, 04 November 2022 15:28 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
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On 11/3/2022 4:11 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 02/11/2022 17:21, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2022-11-02, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> At one time 'transconductance' was a regular part of my reading, if not
>>> spoken ...
>>
>> I saw it as a characteristic of tubes, which aren't used much any mho.
>>
>
> Field effect transistors are. Hugely.
>
"The basic gain of vacuum tubes and FETs is expressed as
transconductance. It is represented with the symbol g-sub-m. The term
derives from "transfer conductance" and is measured in siemens (S),
where 1 siemens = 1 ampere per volt. It was formerly measured as "mho"
(ohm spelled backwards)."
Sure Charlie Gibbs is aware that vacuum tubes are *still* used in
specialized applications. Tube-based guitar amplifiers are a favorite
of many guitarists. Taking inflation into account, the prices of vacuum
tubes have *not* increased much.
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Charles Richmond
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417331 is a reply to message #417317] |
Fri, 04 November 2022 15:52 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
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On 11/3/2022 12:59 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2022-11-03, Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> wrote:
>
>> Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> schrieb:
>>
>>> On 2022-11-02, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ---
>>>> However, in APL a polynomial can be written more perspicuously in the
>>>> form +/c×x*e , which also requires no parentheses.
>>>> ---
>>>>
>>>> Jesus, what a steaming heap of shit. :-)
>>>
>>> Eschew obfuscation.
>>
>> Stamp out and abolish redundancy!
>
> This message has been brought to you by the
> Department of Redundancy Department.
>
I *never* repeat myself! Never!!!
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Charles Richmond
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| Re: self-documenting APL, not COBOL and tricks [message #417332 is a reply to message #417328] |
Fri, 04 November 2022 16:23 |
Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
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On 2022-11-04, Charles Richmond <codescott@aquaporin4.com> wrote:
> "American English does *not* borrow words; it drags them into an alley
> and beats them senseless!!!"
The problem with defending the purity of the English language
is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We
don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued
other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and
rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
-- James D. Nicoll
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
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