tes@whuts.UUCP (02/26/87)
In article <517@cod.UUCP>, rupp@cod.UUCP (William L. Rupp) writes: > In article <1277@beta.UUCP> hp@beta.UUCP (Akkana) writes: > > > >When I was first learning Unix, I was trained to call '~' a "twiddle", > >but seemingly the rest of the world calls it "tilde". > > That's because it *is* a tilde! one of my pet peeves is the perversion of standard English by computer hackers too lazy to look in the dictionary. Please print the following and post on your terminal: symbol term / virgule (not slash) \ reverse virgule (not back slash) ... ellipses (not dots) ' apostrophe (not accent) (accents in foreign languages do not follow the letter but are placed *over* the letter, therefore, UNIX (tm) does not use accents) [] brackets (not brace) ! exclamation point (not bang) ~ tilde (not twiddle, squiggly, or curly) {} braces (not curly brackets) * asterisk (not star) ^ circumflex (not hat or cap) Of course, I do not expect to reform 100K+ recalcitrant hackers who defiantly wear illiteracy like a rebozo. However, some worthwhile discussion may be engendered. -- ----- Terry Sterkel -====---- AT&T Bell Laboratories --------- {clyde|harvard|allegra|ulysses|ihnp4}!whuts!tes ----- [opinions are obviously only my own]
ken@rochester.UUCP (02/27/87)
|one of my pet peeves is the perversion of standard English by |computer hackers too lazy to look in the dictionary. Please |print the following and post on your terminal: Oh come on, lighten up. The only ones I would object to are calling [] braces and {} brackets. Exclaimation mark is too much of a mouthful. Do you object to calling # sharp? That is what musicians call it you know. It all depends on context. And you didn't complain about people spelling tilde as tilda. There are far worse spelling errors in posted articles. It seems the fashion these days to spell words the way they sound. Ken
bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (02/28/87)
Terry Sterkel exudes... >one of my pet peeves is the perversion of standard English by >computer hackers too lazy to look in the dictionary. All professional fields have their jargon. Chemists might really refer to water as H20 and salt as Sodium Chloride even though the former of each both appears in dictionaries and the latter do not (and water and salt have been in use far longer than the technical names, or their foreign language equivalents.) The very term 'computer' you use is a piece of jargon that has only come into wide acceptance in the last 20 years or so. Look at early journals and you will see several terms being used for these "electronic calculators", "electronic brains", "data processors" etc. Your claim that a printer's terms are 'correct' has little merit. If a user called me they wouldn't have the vaguest idea what a 'virgule' was (most likely.) The purpose of language is to communicate (or have you forgotten that?) The term 'hacker' you use is purely idiomatic and not even of unambiguous definition having been used widely to describe a certain intense subculture of obsessive computer programmers, irresponsible computer hobbyists who break into other systems and (the sense I get from you) anyone who uses the jargon of a computer professional (that is, most anyone who uses computers from a knowledgeable standpoint, as opposed to a casual user.) >Of course, I do not expect to reform 100K+ >recalcitrant hackers who defiantly wear illiteracy >like a rebozo. However, some worthwhile >discussion may be engendered. "100K+" sounds like a bit of jargon to me, is that in your dictionary? My dictionary tells me a "rebozo" is a type of Mexican scarf, hmm, "...who defiantly wear illiteracy like a Mexican scarf", not very useful, must be some idiomatic content to that but Webster isn't helping (then again, we've already determined that you aren't interested in language as a method of communication but, rather, something to bonk your peers over the head with when they don't follow your rules.) You sirrah, are a boor. -Barry Shein, Boston University
chris@mimsy.UUCP (03/01/87)
In article <25361@rochester.ARPA> ken@rochester.ARPA (SKY) writes: >There are far worse spelling errors in posted articles. It seems the >fashion these days to spell words the way they sound. Fight back! When writing articles, use \e olde spelling. Use thy quill pen and phial of ink for \e rough draught, that thou mayest choose each woorde with care. An I have writ poorely, I beg mercy: I have few clews as to \e originall spellings. (Apologies for the lack of an edh. `\' is a poor substitute. The point, however, is that spelling is largely a matter of agreement.) -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7690) UUCP: seismo!mimsy!chris ARPA/CSNet: chris@mimsy.umd.edu
ken@rochester.UUCP (03/01/87)
|(Apologies for the lack of an edh. `\' is a poor substitute. The |point, however, is that spelling is largely a matter of agreement.) Exactly. We agree on using any of the standard dictionaries, I suppose? Note that I am not referring to differences like sulphur/sulfur or honor/honour or little typos that creep in, but persistent, uniform errors, like "here, here" for "hear, hear" (Ed, you intended to put a :-) in, right?), or "you will loose your files". I can imagine, in time, a new myth for the origin of the phrase "here, here" will be invented. Personally these errors don't bother me at all when they appear on the net. After all the information here is transient, right? But when errors creep into an editorial of Potentials, the IEEE student magazine, then I begin to wonder. You may say, why bother with spelling, as long as the reader can figure out what one is trying to say. The point is that the medium should not detract from the message. A spelling error has the same effect on me that a smudge of ink on the page has, it makes me pause, even momentarily. I don't want to beat people over the head and sound like an elitist but if somebody hands me an essay full of smears, my impression will be that the person doesn't care much about the message conveyed. I have redirected followups to sci.lang. Ken
jtr485@umich.UUCP (03/02/87)
In article <1528@whuts.UUCP>, tes@whuts.UUCP writes: > ' apostrophe (not accent) > (accents in foreign languages do not follow > the letter but are placed *over* the letter, > therefore, UNIX (tm) does not use accents) Except that this is almost never used as an apostrophe. Try: ' single quote There is also the issue of: ` accent grave (According to your comment above this must be something else. back quote? leading quote? <ethnic> apostrophe? ) > [] brackets (not brace) Try picking up a Websters Dictionary and Style guide. [] square braces > * asterisk (not star) * asterik > Of course, I do not expect to reform 100K+ recalcitrant hackers who > defiantly wear illiteracy like a rebozo. Alternative naming is not illiteracy. These symbols are being put to vastly different purposes than originally intended. Names with no mnemonic value are rapidly being surplanted. > ----- Terry Sterkel --j.a.tainter
trb@ima.UUCP (03/02/87)
In article <1528@whuts.UUCP> tes@whuts.UUCP (STERKEL) writes: > one of my pet peeves is the perversion of standard English by > computer hackers too lazy to look in the dictionary. ... > Of course, I do not expect to reform 100K+ > recalcitrant hackers who defiantly wear illiteracy > like a rebozo. However, some worthwhile > discussion may be engendered. I am amused that a person would follow the first sentence above with the others which I have quoted. Terry, you are entitled to your opinion, and hackers are entitled to be recalcitrant, but if you are going to accuse others of perverting the English language, the least you can do is to avoid the phrase "some worthwhile discussion may be engendered." time flies defiantly wear illiteracy like a rebozo. Andrew Tannenbaum Interactive Boston, MA +1 617 247 1155
wcs@ho95e.UUCP (03/03/87)
In article <5629@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: \ In article <25361@rochester.ARPA> ken@rochester.ARPA (SKY) writes: \ >There are far worse spelling errors in posted articles. It seems the \ >fashion these days to spell words the way they sound. \ Fight back! \ When writing articles, use \e olde spelling. Use thy quill pen \ and phial of ink for \e rough draught, that thou mayest choose each \ woorde with care. [....] \ \ (Apologies for the lack of an edh. `\' is a poor substitute. The \ point, however, is that spelling is largely a matter of agreement.) Hear, hear! The classic subsitute is 'y', as in Ye Olde Touriste Trappe. (Edh is the voiced th sound.) -- # Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G-202, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs
wam@cdx39.UUCP (03/03/87)
In article <1528@whuts.UUCP>, tes@whuts.UUCP (STERKEL) writes: > > That's because it *is* a tilde! > one of my pet peeves is the perversion of standard English ... peace, it's one of mine, too, but society comprises folks, who will talk... > / virgule (not slash) oh... you mean a slant, guv! > ... ellipses (not dots) shouldn't that be ellipsis? > ' apostrophe (not accent) now that I do know: it's a tick. > ! exclamation point (not bang) seriously now, do you expect me to use five syllables where one will do?
rjf@ukc.ac.uk (R.J.Faichney) (03/05/87)
In article <1528@whuts.UUCP> tes@whuts.UUCP (STERKEL) writes: >[..] >symbol term >/ virgule (not slash) >\ reverse virgule (not back slash) >... ellipses (not dots) >' apostrophe (not accent) > (accents in foreign languages do not follow > the letter but are placed *over* the letter, > therefore, UNIX (tm) does not use accents) >[] brackets (not brace) >! exclamation point (not bang) >~ tilde (not twiddle, squiggly, or curly) >{} braces (not curly brackets) >* asterisk (not star) >^ circumflex (not hat or cap) > ----- Terry Sterkel Does ^ look like a circumflex to you? It's an up-arrow to me. And I thought Unix(tm) didn't use accents? So what do you call a circumflex? Pompous, boring old virgules like you should get tilde. -- Robin Faichney UUCP: ...mcvax!ukc!rjf JANET: rjf@ukc.uk.ac
cjdb@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Charles Blair) (03/06/87)
>> [] brackets (not brace) > >Try picking up a Websters Dictionary and Style guide. >[] square braces I've never heard this as anything but "square brackets" (though "brackets" is sufficient according to some sources). To me braces are these: { }. These -- < > -- I've seen as "angle brackets," though I would find "pointed brackets" unambiguous. (I had to look these up once to help a German-born professor keep his "Klammern" straight in English.) > >> * asterisk (not star) >* asterik "Asterisk," to be sure. But since "asterisk" is from a word meaning "little star," I'd have no objection if "star" started taking over. For what it's worth.-- "... ain't nobody's business if I do." ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!cjdb -- Billie Holiday PMRCJDB@UCHIMVS1.Bitnet
de@moscom.UUCP (Dave Esan) (03/06/87)
>> * asterisk (not star) > * asterik Sorry, the first poster was correct. The spelling is asterisk. With two esses. I think this entire discussion is futile. Language is a means of communication. If two people agree that a word has the same meaning they can use it to communicate. If enough people use a word for a long enough period it becomes part of the language. There ain't no such thing as "the King's English". In countries where there is a language academy (those that I am aware of include France, Spain and Israel, I am sure there are more), the academies make futile attempts to keep foreign words out of the language. It never seems to help. The French still refer to Saturday and Sunday as "le weekend", the Israelis call a helicopter helicopter instead of the correct "masok". Certainly there are "correct" names for '!*`/\, but to call them by the generally accepted UNIX names makes just as much sense, in fact more. Exclamation point is at the end of a exclamation, bang is at the beginning of a command (or in the middle or the end). An asterisk is used to denote a note to the text, a star is used to indicate a variable filler. -- rochester \ David Esan | moscom ! de ritcv/
spf@clyde.UUCP (03/07/87)
In article <25361@rochester.ARPA> ken@rochester.UUCP (SKY) writes: >|one of my pet peeves is the perversion of standard English by >|computer hackers too lazy to look in the dictionary. Please >|print the following and post on your terminal: > >There are far worse spelling errors in posted articles. It seems the >fashion these days to spell words the way they sound. ^^^^^^^^^^ The next time you're cruising through an archive of antique documents (or perhaps a collection of reprints), notice the treatment of spelling in letters, diary entries, &c. In 18th and 19th century documents I've noticed a great deal of variability in the spelling of common words; indeed, I've often seen the same word spelled two different ways in the same paragraph! It would seem that His Excellency General Washington was among the greatest offenders in this regard. Be pleased to construe this as my personal opinion, and not as support for misspelling (or is it mispelling?). Steve Frysinger, Matrosse Capt. John Lamb's Co'y of Art'y The New York Reg't of the Continental Line
trb@ima.UUCP (03/09/87)
When the rn follow-upper asked me if I was absolutely sure I wanted to do this, I was hoping that there was a response other than yes or no... In article <2649@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> rjf@ukc.ukc.ac.uk (R.J.Faichney) writes: > Does ^ look like a circumflex to you? It's an up-arrow to me. For the sake of historical perspective, the 128 character ASCII character set that we use and love had a couple of changes made to it at some point (early '70's?). The characters ^ and _, which are currently caret and underline respectively, used to be up-arrow and back-arrow. The up-arrow looked like what you'd get if you superimposed | and ^ (assuming that | is an unbroken vertical bar). The back-arrow was a left pointing arrow, like < and - superimposed, I guess. Printers that printed back-arrows would ruin underlined text in listings. Andrew Tannenbaum Interactive Boston, MA +1 617 247 1155
arnold@apollo.UUCP (03/11/87)
In article <7152@clyde.ATT.COM> spf@bonnie.UUCP (Steve Frysinger) writes: >In article <25361@rochester.ARPA> ken@rochester.UUCP (SKY) writes: >>There are far worse spelling errors in posted articles. It seems the >>fashion these days to spell words the way they sound. > ^^^^^^^^^^ > >The next time you're cruising through an archive of antique documents >(or perhaps a collection of reprints), notice the treatment of >spelling in letters, diary entries, &c. In 18th and 19th century >documents I've noticed a great deal of variability in the spelling >of common words; indeed, I've often seen the same word spelled >two different ways in the same paragraph! > > Steve Frysinger, Matrosse As Andrew Jackson is reputed to have once said: "It's a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word!" Honestly, folks, can we talk about the evoultion of language in some other group? Meanwhile, I'll say "bang" instead of "exclamation point" because (a) it's easier, and (b) it jerks the chains of certain people who can't admit that language changes to suit the needs of the speakers, not the other 'way round (mostly, anyway; debates on Sapir-Whorf *certainly* belong elsewhere). Ken Arnold
csma@lifia.UUCP (03/14/87)
In article <339ac040.ae48@apollo.uucp> arnold@apollo.UUCP (Ken Arnold) writes: > >Honestly, folks, can we talk about the evoultion of language in some >other group? Meanwhile, I'll say "bang" instead of "exclamation point" >because (a) it's easier, and (b) it jerks the chains of certain people >who can't admit that language changes to suit the needs of the speakers, >not the other 'way round (mostly, anyway; debates on Sapir-Whorf >*certainly* belong elsewhere). > > Ken Arnold Right, but beside the point! It is totally incidental that we use the same key to write an exclamation point and to call a UNIX command; it is thus totally irrelevant to the discussion that musicians call a # a sharp, and typographers a & an ampersand. One can call ! an exclamation point, but one cannot argue that in its UNIXical acceptation it is an exclamation point (i.e. that it must be called an excalmation point); for myself I call it a "shell escape" (pronounce with a heavy french accent), a "point d'exclamation", or a "potion" depending on the context. Beside (but this is another discussion), I would say that while it makes sense to say that XYZ is the name of object X, it does not make sense to say that ZYX is not the name of X: I (or someone else) can always rename it. Nobody can then argue that I must not call X ZYX; obviously I can (but obviously I can expect from nobody that (s)he understands me when I speak of a zyx; eg you probably haven't the least idea of what object I name X :-). -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ch. de Sainte Marie - LIFIA/IMAG - BP 68 - 38402 St Martin d'Heres - FRANCE {seismo.css.gov!mcvax!inria!imag}!lifia!csma or csma@lifia.UUCP