Got a Doubt ! Wanting for your Help ! Plz make it ASAP !

[Mark Lawrence]

"Fail to realize"? What regional redefinition of "realise" is that? How
do you justify using that regional variation outside of your region?

Had a really good chuckle over this, thanks.

It's not like he's using a NEW word; a word that has never been defined,
NO, his region has redefined a widely understood word. [...]
In the previous examples we show that introducing a NEW word is fine,
because, at least when we encounter a NEW word we will *instantly* know
that we need to find a definition for the NEW word BEFORE we can *fully*
comprehend what the author is trying to tell us.

I completely sniglim with what you are saying. I'd go further and state
that, without exception, your argument is the most vumtigious I've ever
seen, and if there were any justice in the world, people would follow you
down the street shouting "Gedus! Gedus!" and giving you a keddener. If
anyone deserves it, it is you.

Don't have time now but search engine will be busy later, can't let
these things pass unchequed.

[...]

When we see the word "doubts", followed by an enumerated listing, we
falsely believe the lad

"The lad"? Well, I suppose that's a step up from calling men twice your
age "boy", but not much.

is confused or has some level of concern.

Whereas when somebody says they have a question, we immediately assume
that they are not confused, and have no concern at all.


[...]

Now... *hopefully* we can understand why the words "question" and
"doubt" should NEVER be used interchangeably.

Now Rick, I know that you're a speaker of a regional variation of
English, so you might not be familiar with the standard meanings of the
word "doubt" in English, including:

3. A point about which one is uncertain or skeptical: reassured
me by answering my doubts.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/doubt


It is without doubt that "question" and "doubt" are synonyms, or perhaps
I should say that it is without question that "doubt" and "question" are
synonyms.

http://thesaurus.com/browse/doubt

Of course, if you have any doubts about this, feel free to ask, we're
happy to answer all reasonable questions.


[...]

"A new home-run record!"

What is this "home-run" of which you speak? Houses don't generally run.
Surely you're not using a regional idiom outside of your region?

I believe that he's referring to the need to rush home in order to use
the toilet, water closet or whatever your dialect uses. Apparently in
some parts of the world a guy called John is constantly being urinated
and defecated on, I'll admit to feeling really sorry for him.

 

[Paul Rudin]

Propositionally: All languages are equal -- Turing complete

As an aside, not all languages are Turing complete. For example Charity
is a language with the property that programs are guaranteed to
terminate.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charity_(programming_language)>

 

[Ned Batchelder]

Hello again Ned. I now understand why you're confused.
Please allow me to explain.

(16 paragraphs snipped)

Rick, I am confused because you have taken a direct question, "what is
it you want us to do", and haven't actually answered it. You've spoken
strongly, you've made elaborate but baffling analogies to squirrels,
you've given us pop quizzes, you've created mock dialogs with others,
etc. Where is the answer to the question? Speak directly and plainly,
and maybe I will understand.

The OP asked a question using the word "codes" for "program". (This was
actually the word that got us started, not "doubt", I had to look back
to realize.) A number of people tried to answer the question. Denis
made a joke, which often happens on the list, based on the multiple
meanings of "codes". Stephen said we should make allowances for slight
difference in dialect.

What parts here are you objecting to?

I don't know what course of action you are advocating. Can you explain,
briefly, without resorting to analogies, quizzes, or philosophers? What
do you want people in this forum to do?

It could be that you are fine with the way things are going in this
forum, and are only objecting to a fine point of Steven's plea. If so,
then maybe we could just drop it as off-topic.

--Ned.

 

[Robert Kern]

Op 27-11-13 09:19, Chris Angelico schreef:

Does that significantly matter or are you just looking for details
you can use to disagree? As far as I understand the overlap between
standard British English and standard American English is so large
that it doesn't really matter for those who had to learn the language.
Likewise for the overlap with standard Australian English.

Since the original usage that you are complaining about is "standard" Indian
English[1], yes, it does significantly matter.

[1] To the extent that there is such a thing as a "standard" form of any
language. Which there isn't, but I will grant you your premise for the time being.

--
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
an underlying truth."
-- Umberto Eco

 

[Robert Kern]

Op 26-11-13 22:42, Tim Delaney schreef:

Well so much for this group being an international group with only one
language allowed.

However that second sentence doesn't make much sense to me. Modern
languages contain a subset that is called the standard language.

Linguists would disagree.

Yes I accept that everyone deviates from this standard language and that
it isn't always easy to know what is and what is not within the standard
language and that we should allow each other some leeway.

Incorrect. No dialect "deviates" from a "standard" form of that language.
Everyone speaks a dialect. The privilege given to any particular dialect has
nothing to do with the form of the dialect itself and everything to do with the
sociopolitical history of its speakers. None of that is relevant to speaking
comprehensibly in an international environment.

--
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
an underlying truth."
-- Umberto Eco

 

[Gene Heskett]

And to my (Indian!!) ears when Tim says 'plank in the eye' where King
James says 'beam' it does not cut it.

And around here, when something comes out correct, it is "better than a
poke in the eye with a sharp stick" if you want to say it in the local
idiom. I used to have a B.I.L. who was always claiming "it was good enough
for the girls I go with".

I think we, who have American English as our first and only language,
should be giving allowances for the local idioms where the poster may be
from, and really try to understand what the other posters mean when their
unfamiliarity with what each of us might define as proper English might
result in some ambiguity of our understanding of the question. If after
careful re-parsing of the statement, I still haven't understood it, then I
am not allergic to asking for clarification IF I CAN CONTRIBUTE. Otherwise
I sit here and lurk, hoping to learn.

But in no case do I think we have a right to berate the original poster,
who may not even speak the internet's default language, and may be looking
up every word in a translation aid book, and doing it both ways to read
what we might have written in response to what he/she posted.

Someone doing that, is in fact making 200x the effort to communicate
compared to me. We should be willing to deal with it, and do our best to
return the favor.

We aren't doing that at all well when we start a week long thread over a
miss-spelled word, which while humorous to some, are really nothing but
contests to see who can come up with the next multi-syllable but totally
meaningless word. Its not humorous to those who are making the effort to
communicate with those of us to whom some dialect of English is the first
and only language. Contributing to the confusion should not be the object
here, but I think that is what we are doing by such action/reaction.

Cheers, Gene
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

I wonder if I should put myself in ESCROW!!
A pen in the hand of this president is far more
dangerous than 200 million guns in the hands of
law-abiding citizens.

 

[rusi]

Linguists would disagree.

Linguists disagree a lot amongst themselves:

Early 20th century there was Fowler and his followers -- unabashedly
laying down the law on what is right and not. Then there were his
opponents (French school I think, not sure what they were called --
poststructuralists maybe??) who said language was defined by usage and
not the other way. Until someone (Fowlerite?) pointed out that those
anti-Fowlerites seemingly objectively described all the dialects but
they themselves stuck to pristine Queen's English.

So like in society, all dialects are equal and some are more equal!

 

[Rotwang]

Op 27-11-13 09:19, Chris Angelico schreef:

[...]

Do you mean standard British English, standard American English,
standard Australian English, or some other?

Does that significantly matter or are you just looking for details
you can use to disagree? As far as I understand the overlap between
standard British English and standard American English is so large
that it doesn't really matter for those who had to learn the language.

The overlap is large, yes, but there are differences in vocabulary that
are just as likely to cause confusion as the doubt/question distinction.

 

[Robert Kern]

Linguists disagree a lot amongst themselves:

Early 20th century there was Fowler and his followers -- unabashedly
laying down the law on what is right and not. Then there were his
opponents (French school I think, not sure what they were called --
poststructuralists maybe??) who said language was defined by usage and
not the other way. Until someone (Fowlerite?) pointed out that those
anti-Fowlerites seemingly objectively described all the dialects but
they themselves stuck to pristine Queen's English.

So like in society, all dialects are equal and some are more equal!

Henry Fowler? To my knowledge, he was a dictionary-maker, not a linguist. To be
fair, back then, the field of linguistics was not terribly well established, so
he might have qualified for the title at the time. However, linguistics has
learned a lot and moved on since then. You would be seriously hard-pressed to
find a prescriptivist linguist these days.

--
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
an underlying truth."
-- Umberto Eco

 

[Larry Martell]

As an aside, not all languages are Turing complete. For example Charity
is a language with the property that programs are guaranteed to
terminate.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charity_(programming_language)>

How about INTERCAL?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercal

 

[rusi]

How about INTERCAL?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercal

Oh its Turing complete alright:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercal#Details

It would be more apt to say that programmers use dozens of 'languages'
(in the sense of notation) that are very far up/down from Turing
equivalent. eg

- regular expressions and parsing tools like yacc are less than Turing
equivalent
- specification langauages like Z/UML are more powerful than Turing
machines in that one can specify unimplementable programs

So when I say 'language' strictly I should say 'programming language'

If (something like) Charity succeeds *as a programming language* then
it will be a significant change in how we view programming. As a thought experiment that is interesting but I would be skeptical…

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

How about INTERCAL?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercal

Intercal is Turing complete.

*Not* being Turing complete is normally a bad thing, at least for a full-
blown programming language. On the other hand, a less powerful non-Turing
complete language would probably be great for things like user-defined
macros, plugins, and similar, where the users are not entirely trusted.

 

[Tim Chase]

And to my (Indian!!) ears when Tim says 'plank in the eye' where
King James says 'beam' it does not cut it.

Well, would you have preferred it in the "correct" form, in
which I could have said "δοκος εν τω οφθαλμω σου"? ;-)

-tkc

 

[rusi]

Well, would you have preferred it in the "correct" form, in
which I could have said "δοκος εν τω οφθαλμω σου"? ;-)

Heh!

 

[alex23]

However that there is no perfect solution doesn't imply
we can't expect some effort from those with english as a mother
tongue to search for ways in which to express themselves that are
more likely to be understood by those who had to learn english
as a foreign language than just to use their local idiom/dialect.

How do you expect people to know they're using a local idiom?

 

[Roy Smith]

How do you expect people to know they're using a local idiom?

Look it up in Urban Dictionary and Bob's your uncle.

 

[Tim Chase]

Look it up in Urban Dictionary and Bob's your uncle.

I thought that's how one could tell if it was an *inappropriate*
idiom. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised that "Bob's your uncle"
doesn't have more inappropriate definitions on UD.

-tkc