doubt about doubt
Bob Nelson
90's. When did this word become nearly synonymous with ``question'' or
``query'' and does it have static duration?
Michael Mair
> I don't remember seeing the term ``doubt'' used much in c.l.c. back in the
> 90's. When did this word become nearly synonymous with ``question'' or
> ``query'' and does it have static duration?
Well, as there are more and more participants from more and more
countries, you get more and more versions of "English". In this
case, the origin is India.
When the scope was clear, we worried more about semantics and
linkage than duration, though ;-)
Cheers
Michael
--
E-Mail: Mine is an /at/ gmx /dot/ de address.
Peter Nilsson
> I don't remember seeing the term ``doubt'' used much in c.l.c. back in the
> 90's. When did this word become nearly synonymous with ``question'' or
> ``query''
When western countries started outsourcing Y2K problems to Asian sub-
continent countries.
> and does it have static duration?
N, s redy bng rplcd wt 'dbt'.
Shouldn't be long before it's just 'dt'. ;-)
--
Peter
Keith Thompson
It seems to be common usage in India.
--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks...@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
Richard Bos
> Bob Nelson wrote:
> > I don't remember seeing the term ``doubt'' used much in c.l.c. back in the
> > 90's. When did this word become nearly synonymous with ``question'' or
> > ``query''
>
> When western countries started outsourcing Y2K problems to Asian sub-
> continent countries.
Specifically, the Indian subcontinent. I'm sure an influx of programmers
from the Arabian subcontinent would have brought its own linguistic
oddities, but this one seems to be mostly Indian.
Richard
Richard Heathfield
> I don't remember seeing the term ``doubt'' used much in c.l.c. back in the
> 90's. When did this word become nearly synonymous with ``question'' or
> ``query''
Strangely, both nouns are commonly used as verbs without modification, and
the verb forms are fairly close in meaning, although by no means
synonymous. In the noun form, they are even less obviously associated, and
it's hard to see how anyone could learn them except from someone who had
already got them wrong. I suppose it's a bit like void main - someone
randomly used the one instead of the other, and was sufficiently
influential that their usage was adopted by others.
> and does it have static duration?
Well, it certainly appears to lead to collisions!
--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at above domain (but drop the www, obviously)
Bob Nelson
> Bob Nelson said:
>
>> I don't remember seeing the term ``doubt'' used much in c.l.c. back in
>> the 90's. When did this word become nearly synonymous with ``question''
>> or ``query''
>
> Strangely, both nouns are commonly used as verbs without modification, and
> the verb forms are fairly close in meaning, although by no means
> synonymous. In the noun form, they are even less obviously associated, and
> it's hard to see how anyone could learn them except from someone who had
> already got them wrong. I suppose it's a bit like void main - someone
> randomly used the one instead of the other, and was sufficiently
> influential that their usage was adopted by others.
Steve Summit's release of the ``C-FAD-list'' appears unlikely.
Default User
As others have noted, it's a dialect usage in India. There's an
expanding pool of beginning programmers in India, coupled with the new
Google interface to give them easier access to usenet.
Brian
Mark McIntyre
When lots of people speaking a different idiomatic version of English
began programming. Seems that in India "doubt" means "question".
--
Mark McIntyre
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan
blm...@myrealbox.com
Mark McIntyre <markmc...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>On Fri, 28 Jul 2006 06:01:42 GMT, in comp.lang.c , Bob Nelson
><bne...@nelsonbe.com> wrote:
>
>>I don't remember seeing the term ``doubt'' used much in c.l.c. back in the
>>90's. When did this word become nearly synonymous with ``question'' or
>>``query'' and does it have static duration?
>
>When lots of people speaking a different idiomatic version of English
>began programming. Seems that in India "doubt" means "question".
>
Also, I understand that whatever word is used in some non-English
languages to pose a question ("I have a question about .... ") is
one that in other contexts can be translated as "doubt", which may
explain why some non-native speakers of English use the unidiomatic
("I have a doubt about .... ") construction.
I've tried to pursue this in a couple of groups where such discussions
might be more on-topic, but not always with much success. I'll track
down specifics if anyone's really interested.
--
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
Dik T. Winter
...
> Also, I understand that whatever word is used in some non-English
> languages to pose a question ("I have a question about .... ") is
> one that in other contexts can be translated as "doubt", which may
> explain why some non-native speakers of English use the unidiomatic
> ("I have a doubt about .... ") construction.
I do not know any language where that is the case. But for non-native
speakers it is certainly the case that it is sometimes difficult to
remember the difference between words in English when such a difference
is non-existing in the native language. I have had my periods confusing
"to teach" and "to learn" when writing English (in Dutch they are a single
verb).
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/
blm...@myrealbox.com
>In article <4j13niF...@individual.net> blm...@myrealbox.com
><blm...@myrealbox.com> writes:
>...
> > Also, I understand that whatever word is used in some non-English
> > languages to pose a question ("I have a question about .... ") is
> > one that in other contexts can be translated as "doubt", which may
> > explain why some non-native speakers of English use the unidiomatic
> > ("I have a doubt about .... ") construction.
>
>I do not know any language where that is the case. But for non-native
>speakers it is certainly the case that it is sometimes difficult to
>remember the difference between words in English when such a difference
>is non-existing in the native language. I have had my periods confusing
>"to teach" and "to learn" when writing English (in Dutch they are a single
>verb).
Strongly agreed (about difficulties with "foreign" languages)!
That is a whole subject in itself, but surely too far off-topic for
this group.
If anyone's curious, the language(s) mentioned when this subject came
up elsewhere were Italian and Spanish, though for Spanish apparently
you *can* say "I have a question", but people seem to prefer to say
"I have a doubt", as this is considered more polite, or something
(I wasn't able to completely understand what the person who made this
claim was getting at).
And the explanation floated here, that "I have a doubt" is standard
in English-as-spoken-in-India .... New information, very plausible,
much appreciated.