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G
Gregory Ewing
[/QUOTE]
And spice is the plural of spouse.
G
Gregory Ewing
Ian said:
In my experience it seems to be a scientific community
vs. computer science community thing. I often hear Fortran
people talk about "a code" where we would say "a library"
or "a piece of code".
S
Steven D'Aprano
[...]
Thank you for the lesson in the virtues of bluntness, and why politeness
and political correctness is a vice. Never let it be said that I'm not
willing to learn from you Rick, so keeping everything you said in mind,
let me say this:
It's not INCORRECT English, you small-minded little git. That was the
point of my post, which clearly was too difficult for your feeble little
thought processes to comprehend. Where do you, an American, get off
telling others that their regional variety of English is incorrect?
After criticising me for hijacking threads, the hypocrisy and cheek of
you doing the same thing with your odious and naive social Darwinism is
breathtaking. Sod off and take your despicable little Randian pseudo-
philosophy with you.
D
Devin Jeanpierre
No, please don't.
If Rick is that annoying and harmful to discussion (he is), rather
than blowing up at him, can we please ban him from the ML? I know that
usenet cannot be affected, but anyone that cares about productive
discussions can either maintain a killfile or use the mailing list.
The state of discussion here as it stands is absurd, what with the
trolling and irrelevant rants and subsequent explosions of hate.
This list needs stronger moderation. Please.
-- Devin
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Chris Angelico
I think this was a case of misrecognized humour... Rick was saying
that it's better to offend people than to let them be wrong, so Steven
took that style to its obvious extreme.
Also, Rick clearly went into Room 12, when he should have gone to 12A,
next door.[1]
ChrisA
[1] http://www.montypython.net/scripts/argument.php
X
xDog Walker
Rule #1: The ML should not disseminate any message which contains an
unquoted "please".
G
Grant Edwards
I think Dennis was taking aim at the OP's request that somebody do his
homework assignment for him rather than at his incorrect (in US
"standard" English) use of the mass noun "code".
Mass nouns seem to be a common tripping point for people learning
English as a second language (and for some with English as their first
language). I'm not sure if that's because their first language doesn't
have something that corresponds to countable vs. mass nouns, or if
it's just the usual problem of English being so random and irregular
that it can only be learned easily by a toddler.
R
Rick Johnson
What the hell makes you believe I'm an American? Because i
speak fluent English? Because i embrace capitalism? Because
i wish to be free of tyranny? Well, if that's all it takes
to be an American, then count me in!
America.append("RickJohnson")
Because with the ALREADY excessive polysemous nature of the
English language, why would we want to PURPOSELY inject more
inconsistency?.. especially when the sole purpose of the
change is driven by selfishness?
Do you remember your thread titled: "The narcissism of small
code differences"? Do you remember how the author warned
against the dangers of re-writing old code for fear of
enduring lengthy de-bugging trials?
Okay, with that synopsis in mind, now you want us to believe
that injecting polysemy into the English language JUST for
the mere PRIDE of "regional groups" is not:
destructive?
or at least harmful?
or at minimum, non-productive?
Yes because women couldn't *possibly* be "legitimate"
philosophers -- is that correct? Or is your chauvinist anger
towards Ayn merely a mask to disguise the *real* source of
hatred: the defection of a fellow "comrade" to the
capitalist system?
How dare people allow themselves to be free!
HOW DARE THEY!
....who's the fascist now?
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Antoon Pardon
Op 23-11-13 03:18, Steven D'Aprano schreef:
I don't see how that follows. I would say on the contrary. This being
an international forum people should try to reframe from burdening
lots of other people with expressions most people will not understand
or even misunderstand.
I don't see how that follows. I would say on the contrary. This being
an international forum people should try to reframe from burdening
lots of other people with expressions most people will not understand
or even misunderstand.
E
Ethan Furman
So we can assume you've made a comprehensive study of the different varieties of English and created a compendium of
which words and/or phrases can be easily misunderstood? Please share that with us, it would be quite helpful.
J
Joel Goldstick
I'm not an expert on Indian English, but I understand that in that
I see the different idioms as kind of interesting, and funny
sometimes, but I don't think they pose a big barrier. Mostly, people
don't provide OS or python version, or explain what they done and what
happens. That makes it harder to respond than figuring out how
different people around the world say stuff. I'm from US and I have
done lots of phone calls with Indian developers. To me it sounds
strange to talk about codes, but I totally understand what they mean.
A bigger problem I have had is in understanding accents during multi
person phone calls with people from other countries. Different
'English' speakers actually speak more differently than we write. At
least here we can read the words, even if they are different.
I see the different idioms as kind of interesting, and funny
sometimes, but I don't think they pose a big barrier. Mostly, people
don't provide OS or python version, or explain what they done and what
happens. That makes it harder to respond than figuring out how
different people around the world say stuff. I'm from US and I have
done lots of phone calls with Indian developers. To me it sounds
strange to talk about codes, but I totally understand what they mean.
A bigger problem I have had is in understanding accents during multi
person phone calls with people from other countries. Different
'English' speakers actually speak more differently than we write. At
least here we can read the words, even if they are different.
N
Ned Batchelder
Rick, I've never understood how much your rants are tongue-in-cheek, or intended to amuse, and how much they accurately represent your philosophy and mindset. Most of your rants had to do with programming at least. Let's please avoid veering off into rants about language and philosophy now.
--Ned.
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Gregory Ewing
Ned said:
Philosophy is totally on topic for this group:
R
Rick Johnson
Hello Ned. I respect the fact that you want to keep threads
on-topic, and i greatly appreciate the humbleness of your
request.
However, i feel as though i am being unfairly treated when
other people (who shall remain unnamed) started the
discussion in an off-topic direction long before i chimed
in.
And to be fair, i was merely retorting a hasty assertion by
our friend Steven. Yes, i might have gotten a bit
philosophical in the process, but the reply itself was
germane to the sub-topic that Steven propagated up.
Furthermore, I don't believe that applying ridged rules of
topicality are to the benefit of anyone. Conversations of
any topic are destined to spin-off in many seemingly
unrelated directions -- and this is healthy!
As a spectator (or a participant) you can choose to stop
listening (or participating) at anytime the conversation
becomes uninteresting to you.
Some of the greatest debates that i have participated
in (those that result in epiphany or even catharsis) had
initially sprung out of seemingly unrelated subject matters
which slowly built to a crescendo of maximum intensity.
I don't think we should attempt to restrict debate since it
is this very debate that results in evolution of not only
the participants, but also the spectators.
"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is
given to him, survival is not. His body is given to
him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to
him, its content is not"
[...]
"Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not
a mechanical process; the connections of logic are
not made by instinct. The function of your stomach,
lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your
mind is not."
"In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to
think or to evade that effort. But you are not free
to escape from your nature, from the fact that
reason is your means of survival -- so that for you,
who are a human being, the question "to be or not to
be" is the question "to think or not to think."
-- Ayn Rand
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Antoon Pardon
Op 25-11-13 21:00, Ethan Furman schreef:
Well I can't stop you from assuming something like that, however it
wasn't implied by what I wrote.
Well I can't stop you from assuming something like that, however it
wasn't implied by what I wrote.
A
Antoon Pardon
Op 25-11-13 21:05, Joel Goldstick schreef:
IMO that is because the differences in idoms you have seen here
are very minor and yet Roy already found it necessary to explain
the specific use of "doubt" by the OP.
Not that I mind that much but as has been said multiple times, a
contribution is only written once and read many times. So I think
we may expect more effort from the writer in trying to be
understandable than from the readers in trying to understand. And
that includes idiom use.
That is fine for you. But can you expect a random reader from
comp.lang.python to understand that without any explanation?
IMO that is because the differences in idoms you have seen here
are very minor and yet Roy already found it necessary to explain
the specific use of "doubt" by the OP.
Not that I mind that much but as has been said multiple times, a
contribution is only written once and read many times. So I think
we may expect more effort from the writer in trying to be
understandable than from the readers in trying to understand. And
that includes idiom use.
That is fine for you. But can you expect a random reader from
comp.lang.python to understand that without any explanation?
N
Ned Batchelder
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I don't mean to single
you out. Threads that get too far off-track are rarely
identified at the actual point they left the arena. Usually
it isn't until they are clearly outside, and far enough
outside that they aren't coming back, that a comment is made.
In particular, I chose to comment on yours because it had
a combination of non-Pythonness, strong language, and no
clear markers of satire.
I agree.
True, but that attitude taken to the extreme is, "anything goes,
and if you are only interested in Python, then only read the xx% of
messages that are about Python." We also need the list to have
a purpose (Python) and a tone (welcoming). When posts or threads
stray too far on both, I start to get concerned.
Again, thanks for your thoughtful approach to this, and also for
using only one exclamation point, and no all-caps.
--Ned.
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Roy Smith
Antoon Pardon said:
We live in an international world (otherwise we wouldn't need that
annoying unicode stuff). When you say, "effort to be understandable",
what you're really saying is, "everybody should be just like me".
Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. Or maybe fortunately, since
variety and exploring different cultures is part of what makes life
interesting.
Keep in mind, there's a lot of native Mandarin speakers who are
wondering why they need to bother learning English at all.
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Chris Angelico
That said, though, there are a few phrases that we all learn to avoid.
I'm used to talking about "knocking up" a rough prototype, but when I
started communicating internationally more, I consciously started
saying "knocking together" instead, to avoid confusing certain groups
of people...
ChrisA