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Anachonistic words and terms
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Steve Hayes
Sep 25, 2014, 7:24:55 AM9/25/14
to
I've been reading a novel set in two different periods, partly in the late
20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of the
main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
likely to have been used.
parameters (in the 1970s malapropistic sense)
proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
teenagers (refering to the youthfulness of solfiers in WW1).
Concerning the last, I thought "boys" or "youths" would be more likely to be
used than "teenagers" in the 1920s, and thought it only came into widespread
use in the 1940s or 1950s.
I tried to look it up online, but found nothing about the history of the word,
but found some other things (ie not in the book I was reading) that struck me
as weird -- namely references to puberty and "first ejaculation". The writers
were obviously looking for some male equivalent to "first menstruation", but
it stuck me as an utterly daft term (and concept), yet it seems to be in quite
widespread use.
"Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
perhaps because so many people who did know what it means ridiculed those who
used it without knowing what it meant. I very rarely hear it nowadays.
The book is "journeys in the dead season" by Spencer Jordan.
http://www.spencerjordan.com/
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of the
main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
likely to have been used.
parameters (in the 1970s malapropistic sense)
proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
teenagers (refering to the youthfulness of solfiers in WW1).
Concerning the last, I thought "boys" or "youths" would be more likely to be
used than "teenagers" in the 1920s, and thought it only came into widespread
use in the 1940s or 1950s.
I tried to look it up online, but found nothing about the history of the word,
but found some other things (ie not in the book I was reading) that struck me
as weird -- namely references to puberty and "first ejaculation". The writers
were obviously looking for some male equivalent to "first menstruation", but
it stuck me as an utterly daft term (and concept), yet it seems to be in quite
widespread use.
"Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
perhaps because so many people who did know what it means ridiculed those who
used it without knowing what it meant. I very rarely hear it nowadays.
The book is "journeys in the dead season" by Spencer Jordan.
http://www.spencerjordan.com/
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
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Peter Duncanson [BrE]
Sep 25, 2014, 7:49:24 AM9/25/14
to
On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
wrote:
>I've been reading a novel set in two different periods, partly in the late
>20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
>
>The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of the
>main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
>reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
>language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
>though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
>with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
>likely to have been used.
>
>parameters (in the 1970s malapropistic sense)
>
>proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
>
"proven" has been around since the 1500s.
>teenagers (refering to the youthfulness of solfiers in WW1).
OED on "teenager":
orig. U.S.
One who is in his or her teens; loosely, an adolescent.
1941 Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 223/2, I never knew teen-agers could
be so serious.
1947 W. H. Auden Age of Anxiety (1948) i. 26 Tops in tests by
teen-agers.
....
"Teenager" was presumably in colloquial use before the first quotation,
but it would surely have appeared in print earlier than 1941 if it had
been in use at the time of WW1.
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
wrote:
>I've been reading a novel set in two different periods, partly in the late
>20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
>
>The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of the
>main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
>reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
>language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
>though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
>with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
>likely to have been used.
>
>parameters (in the 1970s malapropistic sense)
>
>proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
>
>teenagers (refering to the youthfulness of solfiers in WW1).
orig. U.S.
One who is in his or her teens; loosely, an adolescent.
1941 Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 223/2, I never knew teen-agers could
be so serious.
1947 W. H. Auden Age of Anxiety (1948) i. 26 Tops in tests by
teen-agers.
....
"Teenager" was presumably in colloquial use before the first quotation,
but it would surely have appeared in print earlier than 1941 if it had
been in use at the time of WW1.
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Katy Jennison
Sep 25, 2014, 11:32:32 AM9/25/14
to
didn't lose it until some time in the late 1950s. So I'd be extremely
doubtful about "teenager" in the 1920s.
The use of "teenager" with no hyphen was the one anachronism that struck
me in Sarah Waters' otherwise perfectly pitched novel 'The Night Watch',
set in and around the second world war.
--
Katy Jennison
Derek Turner
Sep 25, 2014, 1:31:05 PM9/25/14
to
On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of
> the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the
> period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using
> anachronistic language and spotted several instances that I thought
> might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm
> asking here to see if peoplel with access to more resources can check
> when these terms were likely or not likely to have been used.
I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of
> the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the
> period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using
> anachronistic language and spotted several instances that I thought
> might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm
> asking here to see if peoplel with access to more resources can check
> when these terms were likely or not likely to have been used.
Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
Tony Cooper
Sep 25, 2014, 1:43:38 PM9/25/14
to
in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
Anyone who moves from one country to another, or even from one region
to another, tends to adopt certain expressions that would not be heard
in his/her former location.
The commonly used term for exploring caves in North America is
"spelunking". The word has legitimate origins for describing this
pursuit. See: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spe3.htm
"Kerplunk" is a word used to describe the sound of something...usually
the sound of something dropped or thrown into water. "Kerplunking" is
not a standard term, but the Urban Dictionary has a slang definition.
I won't cite it because I don't have much faith in the Urban
Dictionary as an accurate source.
"Kerplunking" seems to have a legitimate meaning when used to describe
certain activities of bottlenose dolphins. I wouldn't count it as a
commonly used term, though.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando FL
Peter T. Daniels
Sep 25, 2014, 2:18:39 PM9/25/14
to
On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:31:05 PM UTC-4, Derek Turner wrote:
> I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
> Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
> series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
> Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
> 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
spelunking
> I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
> Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
> series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
> Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
> 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
You don't say where the books are set. "Inspector" suggests either
somewhere in the Commonwealth, or San Francisco.
Tony Cooper
Sep 25, 2014, 4:22:29 PM9/25/14
to
Eastvale. He does travel, though.
The OP did not provide the context regarding the use of spelunking. A
North American visitor to the area would use "spelunking". The
Yorkshire Dales are known world-wide for many caves there. Experienced
British cavers would be quite familiar with the term.
John Varela
Sep 25, 2014, 4:22:51 PM9/25/14
to
On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
Ram) wrote:
> Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
> >"Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
> >become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>
> A �parameter� to me is something like �x� in �f(x):=x��.
> I wonder what the meaning of �parameter� in the seventies might have been.
The constants a, b, and c in f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X
is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
--
John Varela
Ram) wrote:
> Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
> >"Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
> >become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>
> I wonder what the meaning of �parameter� in the seventies might have been.
The constants a, b, and c in f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X
is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
--
John Varela
Adam Funk
Sep 25, 2014, 4:49:53 PM9/25/14
to
On 2014-09-25, Tony Cooper wrote:
> On 25 Sep 2014 17:31:05 GMT, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>>I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>
>>Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
>>series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>>Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
>>'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>
> Why wouldn't a person who has moved to a new country adopt the terms
> in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
>
> Anyone who moves from one country to another, or even from one region
> to another, tends to adopt certain expressions that would not be heard
> in his/her former location.
Yabbut the Inspector Banks novels (& TV adaptations) are set in
> On 25 Sep 2014 17:31:05 GMT, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>>I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>
>>Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
>>series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>>Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
>>'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>
> Why wouldn't a person who has moved to a new country adopt the terms
> in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
>
> Anyone who moves from one country to another, or even from one region
> to another, tends to adopt certain expressions that would not be heard
> in his/her former location.
Yorkshire, so Canadianisms are anatopistic --- that's Derek's point.
I certainly agree with your point about adopting the new country's
terms, but if I were writing a book about Virginians, it would be a
mistake to use "pavement" for "sidewalk". (I think if I were going to
write any novels, I'd go for steampunk or something like that to allow
me to make up my own lexicon.)
--
"It is the role of librarians to keep government running in difficult
times," replied Dramoren. "Librarians are the last line of defence
against chaos." (McMullen 2001)
R H Draney
Sep 25, 2014, 5:11:28 PM9/25/14
to
John Varela filted:
The malapropistic sense that Mr Hayes refers to involves using "parameters" when
one means "perimeters"....r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
one means "perimeters"....r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
R H Draney
Sep 25, 2014, 5:15:26 PM9/25/14
to
Tony Cooper filted:
"caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>
>On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:18:39 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
><gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:31:05 PM UTC-4, Derek Turner wrote:
>>
>>> The worst was a barbaric term for
>>> 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>>
>>spelunking
>
>On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:18:39 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
><gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:31:05 PM UTC-4, Derek Turner wrote:
>>
>>> The worst was a barbaric term for
>>> 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>>
>>spelunking
>
>The OP did not provide the context regarding the use of spelunking. A
>North American visitor to the area would use "spelunking". The
>Yorkshire Dales are known world-wide for many caves there. Experienced
>British cavers would be quite familiar with the term.
"Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>North American visitor to the area would use "spelunking". The
>Yorkshire Dales are known world-wide for many caves there. Experienced
>British cavers would be quite familiar with the term.
"caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
Peter T. Daniels
Sep 25, 2014, 5:50:12 PM9/25/14
to
On Thursday, September 25, 2014 5:15:26 PM UTC-4, R H Draney wrote:
> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
> "caving"...
I learned it, ca. 55 years ago, from either a Hardy Boys or a Rick Brant
> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
> "caving"...
novel. It's the ordinary word. "Caving" sounds pretentious.
> the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
(At the very beginning of Michener's *The Source*, the archeologist
muses that he's glad that when he was a kid he collected coins rather
than stamps -- it was a good preliminary to dealing with excavated
finds.)
Message has been deleted
Oliver Cromm
Sep 25, 2014, 6:17:24 PM9/25/14
to
The most anachonistic term I can think of is "anachonda".
[F'up2 aue]
--
*Hardware* /n./ The parts of a computer that can be kicked
[F'up2 aue]
--
*Hardware* /n./ The parts of a computer that can be kicked
Oliver Cromm
Sep 25, 2014, 6:32:53 PM9/25/14
to
* Lewis:
> Okay, so one time? In band camp? R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> was all, like:
> caves with equipment. If you are wandering around in a cave, that's
> caving. If you have ropes and carabiners and hard hats, you're
> spelunking.
I always snicker at that term, as "Spelunke" is another type of
cave-like place in German - a low dive. Talk of drift.
--
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is
to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies.
And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no
obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.
-- C. A. R. Hoare
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---
> Okay, so one time? In band camp? R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> was all, like:
>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>> "caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
>> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>
> No, spelunking is the normal every-day term for someone who goes into
>> "caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
>> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>
> caves with equipment. If you are wandering around in a cave, that's
> caving. If you have ropes and carabiners and hard hats, you're
> spelunking.
I always snicker at that term, as "Spelunke" is another type of
cave-like place in German - a low dive. Talk of drift.
--
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is
to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies.
And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no
obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.
-- C. A. R. Hoare
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---
Jack Campin
Sep 25, 2014, 6:55:51 PM9/25/14
to
>> I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>
>> Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in
>> the series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>> Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term
>> for 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would
>> say.
>>
>> Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in
>> the series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>> Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term
>> for 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would
>> say.
> The commonly used term for exploring caves in North America is
> "spelunking". The word has legitimate origins for describing this
> pursuit. See: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spe3.htm
It's used much more widely than North America, and I'd expect anybody
> "spelunking". The word has legitimate origins for describing this
> pursuit. See: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spe3.htm
who was seriously into the sport would use it interchangeably with
the other words you mention.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mobile 07800 739 557 <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin
Message has been deleted
Robert Bannister
Sep 25, 2014, 7:12:48 PM9/25/14
to
n.
1650s in geometry, from Modern Latin parameter (1630s), from Greek para-
"beside, subsidiary" (see para- (1)) + metron "measure" (see meter (n.2)).
A geometry term until 1920s when it yielded sense of "measurable factor
which helps to define a particular system" (1927). Common modern meaning
(influenced by perimeter) of "boundary, limit, characteristic factor" is
from 1950s. Related: Parametric.
--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia
Robert Bannister
Sep 25, 2014, 7:14:27 PM9/25/14
to
meaning of "limits/boundaries" which has apparently been around since
the 1920s.
Robert Bannister
Sep 25, 2014, 7:16:32 PM9/25/14
to
On 25/09/2014 7:49 pm, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
>
>> I've been reading a novel set in two different periods, partly in the late
>> 20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
>>
>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of the
>> main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
>> reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
>> language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
>> though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
>> with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
>> likely to have been used.
>>
>> parameters (in the 1970s malapropistic sense)
>>
>> proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
>>
> "proven" has been around since the 1500s.
But outside Scotland and America was only used as an adjective, cf
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
>
>> I've been reading a novel set in two different periods, partly in the late
>> 20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
>>
>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of the
>> main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
>> reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
>> language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
>> though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
>> with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
>> likely to have been used.
>>
>> parameters (in the 1970s malapropistic sense)
>>
>> proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
>>
> "proven" has been around since the 1500s.
melted, molten.
Robert Bannister
Sep 25, 2014, 7:23:39 PM9/25/14
to
On 26/09/2014 1:43 am, Tony Cooper wrote:
> On 25 Sep 2014 17:31:05 GMT, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>
>>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of
>>> the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the
>>> period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using
>>> anachronistic language and spotted several instances that I thought
>>> might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm
>>> asking here to see if peoplel with access to more resources can check
>>> when these terms were likely or not likely to have been used.
>>
>> I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>
>> Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
>> series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>> Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
>> 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>
> Why wouldn't a person who has moved to a new country adopt the terms
> in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
Doesn't it depend on where and when a story is set rather than upon the
> On 25 Sep 2014 17:31:05 GMT, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>
>>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of
>>> the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the
>>> period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using
>>> anachronistic language and spotted several instances that I thought
>>> might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm
>>> asking here to see if peoplel with access to more resources can check
>>> when these terms were likely or not likely to have been used.
>>
>> I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>
>> Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
>> series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>> Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
>> 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>
> Why wouldn't a person who has moved to a new country adopt the terms
> in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
author? How would you find a western written in contemporary Aussie slang?
There a quite a large number of authors from North America who set their
novels in England or other parts of Britain. A few do an admirable job -
good enough that you hardly ever notice - some, like Elizabeth George,
manage quite well, but from time to time hit you with a glaring error.
Then there are the ones where you wonder why they couldn't have set
their story either in a place/time they are familiar with or else in a
totally imaginary place.
Robert Bannister
Sep 25, 2014, 7:28:02 PM9/25/14
to
On 26/09/2014 6:55 am, Jack Campin wrote:
>>> I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>>
>>> Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in
>>> the series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>>> Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term
>>> for 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would
>>> say.
>> The commonly used term for exploring caves in North America is
>> "spelunking". The word has legitimate origins for describing this
>> pursuit. See: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spe3.htm
>
> It's used much more widely than North America, and I'd expect anybody
> who was seriously into the sport would use it interchangeably with
> the other words you mention.
I used to go caving in the Mendips (SW England) and here in south-wet
>>> I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>>
>>> Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in
>>> the series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>>> Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term
>>> for 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would
>>> say.
>> The commonly used term for exploring caves in North America is
>> "spelunking". The word has legitimate origins for describing this
>> pursuit. See: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spe3.htm
>
> It's used much more widely than North America, and I'd expect anybody
> who was seriously into the sport would use it interchangeably with
> the other words you mention.
Australia. While I was accustomed to "speliology", the usual term was
"caving" with "potholing" reserved for those deep, vertical shafts
similar to Yorkshire. I have read "spelunking" and the first syllable
(in context) made the meaning obvious, but I have never come across any
native BrE speaker saying it or writing it or even thinking it.
Robert Bannister
Sep 25, 2014, 7:30:04 PM9/25/14
to
On 26/09/2014 6:02 am, Lewis wrote:
> It is perfectly ordinary AmE.
That is surely the whole point of this thread. Why is the author using
AmE for a novel about an Englishman living in England?
> It is perfectly ordinary AmE.
That is surely the whole point of this thread. Why is the author using
AmE for a novel about an Englishman living in England?
Charles Bishop
Sep 25, 2014, 7:42:39 PM9/25/14
to
In article <c8jluj...@mid.individual.net>,
identify metal alloys. We set parameters on the machine using dials to
change the operation of the machine. I had heard that some people didn't
like this use of parameters because it really was a math term.
Late 1960s. I hadn't realized the usage change went back to the 1920s.
--
charles
Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
> On 26/09/2014 5:11 am, R H Draney wrote:
> > John Varela filted:
> >>
> >> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
> >> Ram) wrote:
> >>
> >>> Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
> >>>> "Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to
> >>>> have
> >>>> become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse
> >>>> then,
> >>>
> >>> A �parameter� to me is something like �x� in �f(x):=x2�.
> On 26/09/2014 5:11 am, R H Draney wrote:
> > John Varela filted:
> >>
> >> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
> >> Ram) wrote:
> >>
> >>> Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
> >>>> "Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to
> >>>> have
> >>>> become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse
> >>>> then,
> >>>
> >>> I wonder what the meaning of �parameter� in the seventies might have
> >>> been.
> >>
> >> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X
> >> is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
> >
> > The malapropistic sense that Mr Hayes refers to involves using "parameters"
> > when
> > one means "perimeters"....r
> >
> >
> Never met that, but dictionary.com says some people object to the modern
> meaning of "limits/boundaries" which has apparently been around since
> the 1920s.
One of the jobs I had involved an emission spectrograph, using it to
> >>> been.
> >>
> >> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X
> >> is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
> >
> > The malapropistic sense that Mr Hayes refers to involves using "parameters"
> > when
> > one means "perimeters"....r
> >
> >
> Never met that, but dictionary.com says some people object to the modern
> meaning of "limits/boundaries" which has apparently been around since
> the 1920s.
identify metal alloys. We set parameters on the machine using dials to
change the operation of the machine. I had heard that some people didn't
like this use of parameters because it really was a math term.
Late 1960s. I hadn't realized the usage change went back to the 1920s.
--
charles
Charles Bishop
Sep 25, 2014, 7:46:08 PM9/25/14
to
In article <ifk82adn89b67m0l6...@4ax.com>,
use the local dialect.
I read the books too, but haven't had anything jump out at me.
--
charles
Tony Cooper <tonyco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25 Sep 2014 17:31:05 GMT, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
> >
> >> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of
> >> the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the
> >> period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using
> >> anachronistic language and spotted several instances that I thought
> >> might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm
> >> asking here to see if peoplel with access to more resources can check
> >> when these terms were likely or not likely to have been used.
> >
> >I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
> >
> >Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
> >series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
> >Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
> >'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
> >'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>
> Why wouldn't a person who has moved to a new country adopt the terms
> in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
But the books are set in Yorkshire so presumably the characters would
> On 25 Sep 2014 17:31:05 GMT, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
> >
> >> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of
> >> the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the
> >> period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using
> >> anachronistic language and spotted several instances that I thought
> >> might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm
> >> asking here to see if peoplel with access to more resources can check
> >> when these terms were likely or not likely to have been used.
> >
> >I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
> >
> >Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
> >series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
> >Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
> >'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
> >'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>
> Why wouldn't a person who has moved to a new country adopt the terms
> in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
use the local dialect.
I read the books too, but haven't had anything jump out at me.
--
charles
Mark Brader
Sep 25, 2014, 9:14:24 PM9/25/14
to
Tony Cooper:
"seriously into the sport" are not the same ones who use the term;
they prefer to call it "caving".
Cf. "birdwatching".
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "This one isn't close. It's not even close to
m...@vex.net | being close." --Adam Beneschan
My text in this article is in the public domain.
>> The commonly used term for exploring caves in North America is
>> "spelunking".
Jack Campin:
>> "spelunking".
> It's used much more widely than North America, and I'd expect anybody
> who was seriously into the sport would use it interchangeably with
> the other words you mention.
If what I've come across somewhere is correct, the people who are
> who was seriously into the sport would use it interchangeably with
> the other words you mention.
"seriously into the sport" are not the same ones who use the term;
they prefer to call it "caving".
Cf. "birdwatching".
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "This one isn't close. It's not even close to
m...@vex.net | being close." --Adam Beneschan
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Message has been deleted
Message has been deleted
Tony Cooper
Sep 25, 2014, 10:13:43 PM9/25/14
to
On Fri, 26 Sep 2014 07:30:04 +0800, Robert Bannister
<rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>On 26/09/2014 6:02 am, Lewis wrote:
>
>> It is perfectly ordinary AmE.
>
>That is surely the whole point of this thread. Why is the author using
>AmE for a novel about an Englishman living in England?
Keep in mind that we don't know *who* used the term or under what
<rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>On 26/09/2014 6:02 am, Lewis wrote:
>
>> It is perfectly ordinary AmE.
>
>That is surely the whole point of this thread. Why is the author using
>AmE for a novel about an Englishman living in England?
conditions. Just because the novel is set in Yorkshire doesn't mean
that all characters are from Yorkshire.
Peter Moylan
Sep 25, 2014, 10:28:07 PM9/25/14
to
speakers where it's just noise with no semantic content. The meaning is
approximately "I don't know what this word means, but it seems suitably
technical, and I'm confident my audience won't know either".
In that sense, it's the 1970s equivalent of LOL. I think it continued
long beyond the 1970s, though, among those who like buzzwords.
--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Peter Moylan
Sep 25, 2014, 10:30:49 PM9/25/14
to
going spelunk ... spelunk ... spelunk.
snide...@gmail.com
Sep 25, 2014, 11:00:19 PM9/25/14
to
On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:22:51 PM UTC-7, John Varela wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
> Ram) wrote:
> > Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
> > >"Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
> > >become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
Would that be something like "The parameters of the problem facing President
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
> Ram) wrote:
> > Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
> > >"Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
> > >become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
Johnson include the popularity of Dr King and the stubborness of Governor Wallace""
> >
> > A �parameter� to me is something like �x� in �f(x):=x��.
> > I wonder what the meaning of �parameter� in the seventies might have been.
Civil Rights movement and the reaction to the Viet Nam War. By the end of the
seventies, things had shifted to the rise of the Yuppies.
> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X
> is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
/dps
David D S
Sep 25, 2014, 11:00:52 PM9/25/14
to
Derek Turner wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
> > The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters
> > of the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with
> > the period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear
> > of using anachronistic language and spotted several instances that
> > I thought might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of
> > that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel with access to more
> > resources can check when these terms were likely or not likely to
> > have been used.
>
> I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>
> Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in
> the series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
> Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
> > The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters
> > of the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with
> > the period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear
> > of using anachronistic language and spotted several instances that
> > I thought might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of
> > that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel with access to more
> > resources can check when these terms were likely or not likely to
> > have been used.
>
> I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>
> Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in
> the series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
> for 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would
> say.
I think the word you are grasping for could be "spelunking" rather than
> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would
> say.
"kerplunking", but I may well be wrong. If I read that in a book set in
the
UK of more than about 50 years ago, it would certainly seem quite a bit
odd to me, and more recently, it would seem just odd.
--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be
valid for at least 2 weeks from 2014/9/26 10:57:57
Jerry Friedman
Sep 26, 2014, 12:28:03 AM9/26/14
to
A friend once set out to spelunk
With alcohol filling his trunk.
A pool in a cavern
He turned to a tavern
And got drunk as a skunk. Who'da thunk?
--
Jerry Friedman
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 12:42:58 AM9/26/14
to
I'm no mathematician, and I first encountered the word in a newspaper article
that had the phrase "within the parameters of Mr Vorster's policy".
I looked it up in a dictionary, and it said that it was "a quantity that is
constant in the case considered, but which may vary in other cases".
So I took the phrase to mean that the constants of Mr Vorster's policy
differed, say, from the constants of Mr Carter's policy or the constants of Mr
Brezhnev's policy, but that didn't account for the "within", which made me
suspect, as Mr Draney has suggested that it was a malapropism for "perimeter".
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 12:45:34 AM9/26/14
to
On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 12:49:24 +0100, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"
<ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
>wrote:
>
>
> orig. U.S.
> One who is in his or her teens; loosely, an adolescent.
>
> 1941 Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 223/2, I never knew teen-agers could
> be so serious.
> 1947 W. H. Auden Age of Anxiety (1948) i. 26 Tops in tests by
> teen-agers.
> ....
>
>"Teenager" was presumably in colloquial use before the first quotation,
>but it would surely have appeared in print earlier than 1941 if it had
>been in use at the time of WW1.
Thanks very much. That's what I thought, but I wondered if someone could find
evidence that it was in widespread use in the 1920s, so that a son would use
it in writing to his father.
>
>>The book is "journeys in the dead season" by Spencer Jordan.
>>http://www.spencerjordan.com/
<ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
>wrote:
>
>>I've been reading a novel set in two different periods, partly in the late
>>20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
>>
>>20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
>>
>>The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of the
>>main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
>>reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
>>language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
>>though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
>>with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
>>likely to have been used.
>>
>>main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
>>reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
>>language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
>>though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
>>with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
>>likely to have been used.
>>
>>parameters (in the 1970s malapropistic sense)
>>
>>proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
>>
>"proven" has been around since the 1500s.
>
>>
>>proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
>>
>"proven" has been around since the 1500s.
>
>>teenagers (refering to the youthfulness of solfiers in WW1).
>
>OED on "teenager":
>
>
> orig. U.S.
> One who is in his or her teens; loosely, an adolescent.
>
> 1941 Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 223/2, I never knew teen-agers could
> be so serious.
> 1947 W. H. Auden Age of Anxiety (1948) i. 26 Tops in tests by
> teen-agers.
> ....
>
>"Teenager" was presumably in colloquial use before the first quotation,
>but it would surely have appeared in print earlier than 1941 if it had
>been in use at the time of WW1.
Thanks very much. That's what I thought, but I wondered if someone could find
evidence that it was in widespread use in the 1920s, so that a son would use
it in writing to his father.
>
>>The book is "journeys in the dead season" by Spencer Jordan.
>>http://www.spencerjordan.com/
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 12:52:39 AM9/26/14
to
On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 16:32:32 +0100, Katy Jennison
<ka...@spamtrap.kjennison.com> wrote:
>On 25/09/2014 12:24, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> I've been reading a novel set in two different periods, partly in the late
>> 20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
>>
>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of the
>> main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
>> reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
>> language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
>> though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
>> with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
>> likely to have been used.
>>
>> parameters (in the 1970s malapropistic sense)
>>
>> proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
>>
>didn't lose it until some time in the late 1950s. So I'd be extremely
>doubtful about "teenager" in the 1920s.
>
>The use of "teenager" with no hyphen was the one anachronism that struck
>me in Sarah Waters' otherwise perfectly pitched novel 'The Night Watch',
>set in and around the second world war.
Yes, that's exactly the kind of thing that makes me uneasy when reading a
book. It's the kind of thing that I would hope book editors would be on the
lookout for, and warn authors about.
I think that word became widespread when the world began recovering from the
austerity of WW2, and marketers realised that this was a demographic cohort
that they could sell stuff to, and so they used the word to identify, and to
some extent create their target market. .
<ka...@spamtrap.kjennison.com> wrote:
>On 25/09/2014 12:24, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> I've been reading a novel set in two different periods, partly in the late
>> 20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
>>
>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of the
>> main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
>> reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
>> language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
>> though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
>> with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
>> likely to have been used.
>>
>> parameters (in the 1970s malapropistic sense)
>>
>> proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
>>
>> teenagers (refering to the youthfulness of solfiers in WW1).
>>
>>
>> Concerning the last, I thought "boys" or "youths" would be more likely to be
>> used than "teenagers" in the 1920s, and thought it only came into widespread
>> use in the 1940s or 1950s.
>>
>> I tried to look it up online, but found nothing about the history of the word,
>> but found some other things (ie not in the book I was reading) that struck me
>> as weird -- namely references to puberty and "first ejaculation". The writers
>> were obviously looking for some male equivalent to "first menstruation", but
>> it stuck me as an utterly daft term (and concept), yet it seems to be in quite
>> widespread use.
>>
>> used than "teenagers" in the 1920s, and thought it only came into widespread
>> use in the 1940s or 1950s.
>>
>> I tried to look it up online, but found nothing about the history of the word,
>> but found some other things (ie not in the book I was reading) that struck me
>> as weird -- namely references to puberty and "first ejaculation". The writers
>> were obviously looking for some male equivalent to "first menstruation", but
>> it stuck me as an utterly daft term (and concept), yet it seems to be in quite
>> widespread use.
>>
>> "Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
>> become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>> become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>> perhaps because so many people who did know what it means ridiculed those who
>> used it without knowing what it meant. I very rarely hear it nowadays.
>>
>Teen-ager isn't recorded before 1941. It started out with a hyphen, and
>> used it without knowing what it meant. I very rarely hear it nowadays.
>>
>didn't lose it until some time in the late 1950s. So I'd be extremely
>doubtful about "teenager" in the 1920s.
>
>The use of "teenager" with no hyphen was the one anachronism that struck
>me in Sarah Waters' otherwise perfectly pitched novel 'The Night Watch',
>set in and around the second world war.
Yes, that's exactly the kind of thing that makes me uneasy when reading a
book. It's the kind of thing that I would hope book editors would be on the
lookout for, and warn authors about.
I think that word became widespread when the world began recovering from the
austerity of WW2, and marketers realised that this was a demographic cohort
that they could sell stuff to, and so they used the word to identify, and to
some extent create their target market. .
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 12:57:22 AM9/26/14
to
>On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of
>> the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the
>> period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using
>> anachronistic language and spotted several instances that I thought
>> might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm
>> asking here to see if peoplel with access to more resources can check
>> when these terms were likely or not likely to have been used.
>
>
>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of
>> the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the
>> period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using
>> anachronistic language and spotted several instances that I thought
>> might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm
>> asking here to see if peoplel with access to more resources can check
>> when these terms were likely or not likely to have been used.
>
>I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>
>Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
>series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
>
>Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
>series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
Spelunking? I hadn't noticed it those books, which I've also been reading.
>'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 12:59:16 AM9/26/14
to
On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:43:38 -0400, Tony Cooper <tonyco...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>On 25 Sep 2014 17:31:05 GMT, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>
>>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of
>>> the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the
>>> period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using
>>> anachronistic language and spotted several instances that I thought
>>> might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm
>>> asking here to see if peoplel with access to more resources can check
>>> when these terms were likely or not likely to have been used.
>>
>>I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>
>>Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
>>series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>>Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
>>'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>
>to another, tends to adopt certain expressions that would not be heard
>in his/her former location.
No reason why he shouldn't use them in everyday speech, but when he's writing
a book set in Yorkshire, he shouldn't put such words in the mouths of his
characters.
wrote:
>On 25 Sep 2014 17:31:05 GMT, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:24:55 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>
>>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of
>>> the main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the
>>> period. I'd be reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using
>>> anachronistic language and spotted several instances that I thought
>>> might be anachronistic, though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm
>>> asking here to see if peoplel with access to more resources can check
>>> when these terms were likely or not likely to have been used.
>>
>>I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>
>>Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
>>series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>>Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
>>'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>
>Why wouldn't a person who has moved to a new country adopt the terms
>in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
>
>Anyone who moves from one country to another, or even from one region
>in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
>
>to another, tends to adopt certain expressions that would not be heard
>in his/her former location.
No reason why he shouldn't use them in everyday speech, but when he's writing
a book set in Yorkshire, he shouldn't put such words in the mouths of his
characters.
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 1:03:40 AM9/26/14
to
On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 21:49:53 +0100, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>On 2014-09-25, Tony Cooper wrote:
>
>> On 25 Sep 2014 17:31:05 GMT, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>
>>>I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>>
>>>Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
>>>series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>>>Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
>>>'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>>'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>>
>> Why wouldn't a person who has moved to a new country adopt the terms
>> in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
>>
>> Anyone who moves from one country to another, or even from one region
>> to another, tends to adopt certain expressions that would not be heard
>> in his/her former location.
>
>Yabbut the Inspector Banks novels (& TV adaptations) are set in
>Yorkshire, so Canadianisms are anatopistic --- that's Derek's point.
>
>I certainly agree with your point about adopting the new country's
>terms, but if I were writing a book about Virginians, it would be a
>mistake to use "pavement" for "sidewalk". (I think if I were going to
>write any novels, I'd go for steampunk or something like that to allow
>me to make up my own lexicon.)
A few years ago I was re-reading Salinger's "The catcher in the rye" and the
use of "kerb" struck me as anatopistic and inauthentic, but I checked with aue
at the time, and it appeared that that was only in the UK edition, and was
similar to the substitution of "sorcerer" for "philosopher" in the US editions
of the Harry Potter books.
>On 2014-09-25, Tony Cooper wrote:
>
>> On 25 Sep 2014 17:31:05 GMT, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>
>>>I've been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.
>>>
>>>Robinson is Yorkshire-born but now lives in Canada. In every book in the
>>>series I've noticed vocabulary that the OED flags as N. American.
>>>Surprised his editors haven't noticed. The worst was a barbaric term for
>>>'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>>'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>>
>> Why wouldn't a person who has moved to a new country adopt the terms
>> in common use in the new country? He's not in Yorkshire anymore.
>>
>> Anyone who moves from one country to another, or even from one region
>> to another, tends to adopt certain expressions that would not be heard
>> in his/her former location.
>
>Yorkshire, so Canadianisms are anatopistic --- that's Derek's point.
>
>I certainly agree with your point about adopting the new country's
>terms, but if I were writing a book about Virginians, it would be a
>mistake to use "pavement" for "sidewalk". (I think if I were going to
>write any novels, I'd go for steampunk or something like that to allow
>me to make up my own lexicon.)
A few years ago I was re-reading Salinger's "The catcher in the rye" and the
use of "kerb" struck me as anatopistic and inauthentic, but I checked with aue
at the time, and it appeared that that was only in the UK edition, and was
similar to the substitution of "sorcerer" for "philosopher" in the US editions
of the Harry Potter books.
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 1:13:12 AM9/26/14
to
On Fri, 26 Sep 2014 01:24:21 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>Okay, so one time? In band camp? Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> was all, like:
>Peter Robinson, evidently. While he is "Canadian" he spent his first
>quarter century in the UK.
Language changes, new terms appear, anbd old ones disappear.
I was in the UK from 1966-1968, and things that I noticed about British usage
have changed since then, and people on aue have told me that they were
completely unaware of them. An example was that in London in 1966 what I
caloled "chips" were called "French fried potatoes" in every eating place I
entered in theb 6 months I lived and worked there. In Durham they were called
"chips", but in London they were "French fried potatoes". From what I've ehard
from people ion aue that was a temporary affectation, and it is no longer in
use. If I were writing a book set in the UK in another period, and used
"French fried potatoes", it would ap-pear as an anachronism.
So Peter Robinson is perhaps out of touch with the current language of the
place in which his novels are set, because both it and his everyday language
have changed.
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>Okay, so one time? In band camp? Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> was all, like:
>quarter century in the UK.
Language changes, new terms appear, anbd old ones disappear.
I was in the UK from 1966-1968, and things that I noticed about British usage
have changed since then, and people on aue have told me that they were
completely unaware of them. An example was that in London in 1966 what I
caloled "chips" were called "French fried potatoes" in every eating place I
entered in theb 6 months I lived and worked there. In Durham they were called
"chips", but in London they were "French fried potatoes". From what I've ehard
from people ion aue that was a temporary affectation, and it is no longer in
use. If I were writing a book set in the UK in another period, and used
"French fried potatoes", it would ap-pear as an anachronism.
So Peter Robinson is perhaps out of touch with the current language of the
place in which his novels are set, because both it and his everyday language
have changed.
snide...@gmail.com
Sep 26, 2014, 1:52:12 AM9/26/14
to
On Thursday, September 25, 2014 10:13:12 PM UTC-7, Steve Hayes wrote:
> So Peter Robinson is perhaps out of touch with the current language of the
> place in which his novels are set, because both it and his everyday language
> have changed.
Not precisely on topic, but closely related: The curmdugeon who has the 7-12 pm shift at the Left Coast's largest station (in terms of listeners) playing classical music [1] stays on a little bit longer when the calendar is changing years. 7 pm Dec 31 to something like 4 am Jan 01. In the extended hours of his celebratory shift, he plays some, er, classics from the days when Peter Sellers was a team player on an ensemble comedic radio program. Dudley Moore was in that cohort, it seems (the Goon Show, if you hadn't already guessed).
> So Peter Robinson is perhaps out of touch with the current language of the
> place in which his novels are set, because both it and his everyday language
> have changed.
What seems to be a non-GS recording by Mr Moore is on the playlist; that recording is a reading of a short story by Mark Twain, set in the court of Elizabeth (First of that Name). It was a practice piece written while Mr Clemens was preparing to write /The Prince and The Pauper/, to "get into" the language of the setting. In Mr Moore's reading, it is quite convincing to my untuteled ears [2].
[1] That could use some editing, eh?
[2] Toots are the subject of the story.
[3] Is there a tautist among the toots, as there is a flautist among the flutes?
/dps "no, doesn't ring any bells"
R H Draney
Sep 26, 2014, 1:54:39 AM9/26/14
to
snide...@gmail.com filted:
and an argument....r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
>
>On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:22:51 PM UTC-7, John Varela wrote:
>
>> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) =3D ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X=20
>On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:22:51 PM UTC-7, John Varela wrote:
>
>> is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
>
>Are you (John) speaking as a mathematician rather than as a programmer?
A programmer would feel compelled to explain the distinction between a parameter
>
>Are you (John) speaking as a mathematician rather than as a programmer?
and an argument....r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
snide...@gmail.com
Sep 26, 2014, 1:56:24 AM9/26/14
to
On Thursday, September 25, 2014, really-truly in UTC-7, snide...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, September 25, 2014. perhaps, Steve Hayes wrote:
[hey! I just found the _Enter_ key!]
> On Thursday, September 25, 2014. perhaps, Steve Hayes wrote:
[hey! I just found the _Enter_ key!]
snide...@gmail.com
Sep 26, 2014, 1:59:31 AM9/26/14
to
On Thursday, September 25, 2014 well before midnite my time, R H Draney wrote:
> snide...@gmail.com filted:
> >On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:22:51 PM UTC-7, John Varela wrote:
> >> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) =3D ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X=2
> snide...@gmail.com filted:
> >On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:22:51 PM UTC-7, John Varela wrote:
> >> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) =3D ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X=2
> >> is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
> >
> >Are you (John) speaking as a mathematician rather than as a programmer?
>
> A programmer would feel compelled to explain the distinction between a parameter
> and an argument....r
Formal or actual?
> >
> >Are you (John) speaking as a mathematician rather than as a programmer?
>
> A programmer would feel compelled to explain the distinction between a parameter
> and an argument....r
/dps "tails or tux? Knee breeches or leggings?"
R H Draney
Sep 26, 2014, 2:02:17 AM9/26/14
to
Peter T. Daniels filted:
>novel. It's the ordinary word. "Caving" sounds pretentious.
"Beemer" = familiar term for a vehicle made by Bayerische Motoren Werke.
"Bimmer" = the same vehicle as perceived by someone who either owns one or
wishes to own one, and who considers such ownership or desired ownership his
single most important personal characteristic.
>
>On Thursday, September 25, 2014 5:15:26 PM UTC-4, R H Draney wrote:
>
>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>> "caving"...
>
>I learned it, ca. 55 years ago, from either a Hardy Boys or a Rick Brant
>On Thursday, September 25, 2014 5:15:26 PM UTC-4, R H Draney wrote:
>
>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>> "caving"...
>
>novel. It's the ordinary word. "Caving" sounds pretentious.
"Beemer" = familiar term for a vehicle made by Bayerische Motoren Werke.
"Bimmer" = the same vehicle as perceived by someone who either owns one or
wishes to own one, and who considers such ownership or desired ownership his
single most important personal characteristic.
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 4:28:28 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-26, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On 9/25/14 8:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 26/09/14 07:15, R H Draney wrote:
>>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>>> "caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
>>> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>>
>> It works well in those very damp caves where you can hear dripping water
>> going spelunk ... spelunk ... spelunk.
>
> Indeed, the word is popular because it's fun to say.
Doesn't that feature in a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon?
> On 9/25/14 8:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 26/09/14 07:15, R H Draney wrote:
>>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>>> "caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
>>> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>>
>> It works well in those very damp caves where you can hear dripping water
>> going spelunk ... spelunk ... spelunk.
>
> Indeed, the word is popular because it's fun to say.
--
Unix is a user-friendly operating system. It's just very choosy about
its friends.
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 4:26:49 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-25, Stefan Ram wrote:
> "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> writes:
>>On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
>>Ram) wrote:
>>>Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
> You are right for the realm of mathematics. When I made my
> statement, I was thinking of how the term is used in some
> parts of computer science, for example in some programming
> languages like C++ or Java.
"Our function calls do not have parameters; they have arguments and
they ALWAYS win them." (Klingon Programmers' Guide)
--
You're 100 percent correct --- it's been scientifically proven that
microwaving changes the molecular structure of food. THIS IS CALLED
COOKING, YOU NITWIT. --- Cecil Adams
> "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> writes:
>>On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
>>Ram) wrote:
>>>Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
>>>>"Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
>>>>become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>>>>become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>>>A »parameter« to me is something like »x« in »f(x):=x²«.
>>>I wonder what the meaning of »parameter« in the seventies might have been.
>>The constants a, b, and c in f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X
>>>I wonder what the meaning of »parameter« in the seventies might have been.
> You are right for the realm of mathematics. When I made my
> statement, I was thinking of how the term is used in some
> parts of computer science, for example in some programming
> languages like C++ or Java.
"Our function calls do not have parameters; they have arguments and
they ALWAYS win them." (Klingon Programmers' Guide)
--
You're 100 percent correct --- it's been scientifically proven that
microwaving changes the molecular structure of food. THIS IS CALLED
COOKING, YOU NITWIT. --- Cecil Adams
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 4:27:37 AM9/26/14
to
--
$2.95!
PLATE O' SHRIMP
Luncheon Special
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 5:00:11 AM9/26/14
to
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 5:08:01 AM9/26/14
to
On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 22:28:03 -0600, Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
>On 9/25/14 8:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 26/09/14 07:15, R H Draney wrote:
>>> Tony Cooper filted:
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:18:39 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>>>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:31:05 PM UTC-4, Derek Turner wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> The worst was a barbaric term for
>>>>>> 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>>>>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>>>>>
>>>>> spelunking
>>>>
>>>> The OP did not provide the context regarding the use of spelunking. A
>>>> North American visitor to the area would use "spelunking". The
>>>> Yorkshire Dales are known world-wide for many caves there. Experienced
>>>> British cavers would be quite familiar with the term.
>>>
>>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>>> "caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
>>> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>>
>> It works well in those very damp caves where you can hear dripping water
>> going spelunk ... spelunk ... spelunk.
>
>Indeed, the word is popular because it's fun to say.
I was able to guess what it meant because of its resemblanced to the Afrikaans
word "spelonk", meaning a cave.
I thought it may have been a hangover from the days when New York was known as
Nieuw Amsterdam.
AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
(estate).
wrote:
>On 9/25/14 8:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 26/09/14 07:15, R H Draney wrote:
>>> Tony Cooper filted:
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:18:39 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>>>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:31:05 PM UTC-4, Derek Turner wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> The worst was a barbaric term for
>>>>>> 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>>>>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>>>>>
>>>>> spelunking
>>>>
>>>> The OP did not provide the context regarding the use of spelunking. A
>>>> North American visitor to the area would use "spelunking". The
>>>> Yorkshire Dales are known world-wide for many caves there. Experienced
>>>> British cavers would be quite familiar with the term.
>>>
>>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>>> "caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
>>> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>>
>> It works well in those very damp caves where you can hear dripping water
>> going spelunk ... spelunk ... spelunk.
>
>Indeed, the word is popular because it's fun to say.
word "spelonk", meaning a cave.
I thought it may have been a hangover from the days when New York was known as
Nieuw Amsterdam.
AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
(estate).
Snidely
Sep 26, 2014, 5:12:36 AM9/26/14
to
On Thursday, Steve Hayes yelped out that:
give me a week or two, and I might figure out how to do it myself.
Heck, my first stab shows unhyphenated rising in the '50s, and zooming
in might show activity in the late '40s, using either English or AmE
for the corpus.
Hyphenated in AmE seems to have a small blip around 1920, and takes off
1939-1940, peaking around 1970 and falling rapidly after that.
Jerry still has a chance to speak up and refine or repair my
osbervationismess.
/dps
--
The presence of this syntax results from the fact that SQLite is really
a Tcl extension that has escaped into the wild.
<http://www.sqlite.org/lang_expr.html>
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 12:49:24 +0100, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"
> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>> "Teenager" was presumably in colloquial use before the first quotation,
>> but it would surely have appeared in print earlier than 1941 if it had
>> been in use at the time of WW1.
>
> Thanks very much. That's what I thought, but I wondered if someone could find
> evidence that it was in widespread use in the 1920s, so that a son would use
> it in writing to his father.
Jerry or the other NGram wizards should have stepped in by now. But
> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>> "Teenager" was presumably in colloquial use before the first quotation,
>> but it would surely have appeared in print earlier than 1941 if it had
>> been in use at the time of WW1.
>
> Thanks very much. That's what I thought, but I wondered if someone could find
> evidence that it was in widespread use in the 1920s, so that a son would use
> it in writing to his father.
give me a week or two, and I might figure out how to do it myself.
Heck, my first stab shows unhyphenated rising in the '50s, and zooming
in might show activity in the late '40s, using either English or AmE
for the corpus.
Hyphenated in AmE seems to have a small blip around 1920, and takes off
1939-1940, peaking around 1970 and falling rapidly after that.
Jerry still has a chance to speak up and refine or repair my
osbervationismess.
/dps
--
The presence of this syntax results from the fact that SQLite is really
a Tcl extension that has escaped into the wild.
<http://www.sqlite.org/lang_expr.html>
Snidely
Sep 26, 2014, 5:14:03 AM9/26/14
to
Steve Hayes submitted this gripping article, maybe on Friday:
> AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
> (estate).
Caboodles require kits to be whole.
> AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
> (estate).
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 5:09:19 AM9/26/14
to
--
In the 1970s, people began receiving utility bills for
-£999,999,996.32 and it became harder to sustain the
myth of the infallible electronic brain. (Verity Stob)
Snidely
Sep 26, 2014, 5:20:41 AM9/26/14
to
On Friday, Snidely queried:
1900, although that's all usages, and I'd need help to tell how much is
mathematical and how much is describing extent or limits.
/dps
--
Maybe C282Y is simply one of the hangers-on, a groupie following a
future guitar god of the human genome: an allele with undiscovered
virtuosity, currently soloing in obscurity in Mom's garage.
Bradley Wertheim, theAtlantic.com, Jan 10 2013
> On Thursday, Steve Hayes yelped out that:
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 12:49:24 +0100, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"
>> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>
>>> "Teenager" was presumably in colloquial use before the first quotation,
>>> but it would surely have appeared in print earlier than 1941 if it had
>>> been in use at the time of WW1.
>>
>> Thanks very much. That's what I thought, but I wondered if someone could
>> find
>> evidence that it was in widespread use in the 1920s, so that a son would
>> use
>> it in writing to his father.
>
> Jerry or the other NGram wizards should have stepped in by now. But give me
> a week or two, and I might figure out how to do it myself. Heck, my first
> stab shows unhyphenated rising in the '50s, and zooming in might show
> activity in the late '40s, using either English or AmE for the corpus.
>
> Hyphenated in AmE seems to have a small blip around 1920, and takes off
> 1939-1940, peaking around 1970 and falling rapidly after that.
>
> Jerry still has a chance to speak up and refine or repair my
> osbervationismess.
And parameters has a little life around 1820 and then is reborn around
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 12:49:24 +0100, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"
>> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>
>>> "Teenager" was presumably in colloquial use before the first quotation,
>>> but it would surely have appeared in print earlier than 1941 if it had
>>> been in use at the time of WW1.
>>
>> Thanks very much. That's what I thought, but I wondered if someone could
>> find
>> evidence that it was in widespread use in the 1920s, so that a son would
>> use
>> it in writing to his father.
>
> Jerry or the other NGram wizards should have stepped in by now. But give me
> a week or two, and I might figure out how to do it myself. Heck, my first
> stab shows unhyphenated rising in the '50s, and zooming in might show
> activity in the late '40s, using either English or AmE for the corpus.
>
> Hyphenated in AmE seems to have a small blip around 1920, and takes off
> 1939-1940, peaking around 1970 and falling rapidly after that.
>
> Jerry still has a chance to speak up and refine or repair my
> osbervationismess.
1900, although that's all usages, and I'd need help to tell how much is
mathematical and how much is describing extent or limits.
/dps
--
Maybe C282Y is simply one of the hangers-on, a groupie following a
future guitar god of the human genome: an allele with undiscovered
virtuosity, currently soloing in obscurity in Mom's garage.
Bradley Wertheim, theAtlantic.com, Jan 10 2013
Snidely
Sep 26, 2014, 5:23:12 AM9/26/14
to
Snidely blurted out:
> On Friday, Snidely queried, er, quipped:
1860.
> On Friday, Snidely queried, er, quipped:
>> On Thursday, Steve Hayes yelped out that:
>>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 12:49:24 +0100, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"
>>> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>>>> "Teenager" was presumably in colloquial use before the first quotation,
>>>> but it would surely have appeared in print earlier than 1941 if it had
>>>> been in use at the time of WW1.
>>>
>>> Thanks very much. That's what I thought, but I wondered if someone could
>>> find
>>> evidence that it was in widespread use in the 1920s, so that a son would
>>> use
>>> it in writing to his father.
>>
>> Jerry or the other NGram wizards should have stepped in by now. But give
>> me a week or two, and I might figure out how to do it myself. Heck, my
>> first stab shows unhyphenated rising in the '50s, and zooming in might show
>> activity in the late '40s, using either English or AmE for the corpus.
>>
>> Hyphenated in AmE seems to have a small blip around 1920, and takes off
>> 1939-1940, peaking around 1970 and falling rapidly after that.
>>
>> Jerry still has a chance to speak up and refine or repair my
>> osbervationismess.
>
> And parameters has a little life around 1820 and then is reborn around 1900,
> although that's all usages, and I'd need help to tell how much is
> mathematical and how much is describing extent or limits.
Anachronistic is a bit off the floor in 1815, and then stands up around
>>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 12:49:24 +0100, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"
>>> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>>>> "Teenager" was presumably in colloquial use before the first quotation,
>>>> but it would surely have appeared in print earlier than 1941 if it had
>>>> been in use at the time of WW1.
>>>
>>> Thanks very much. That's what I thought, but I wondered if someone could
>>> find
>>> evidence that it was in widespread use in the 1920s, so that a son would
>>> use
>>> it in writing to his father.
>>
>> Jerry or the other NGram wizards should have stepped in by now. But give
>> me a week or two, and I might figure out how to do it myself. Heck, my
>> first stab shows unhyphenated rising in the '50s, and zooming in might show
>> activity in the late '40s, using either English or AmE for the corpus.
>>
>> Hyphenated in AmE seems to have a small blip around 1920, and takes off
>> 1939-1940, peaking around 1970 and falling rapidly after that.
>>
>> Jerry still has a chance to speak up and refine or repair my
>> osbervationismess.
>
> And parameters has a little life around 1820 and then is reborn around 1900,
> although that's all usages, and I'd need help to tell how much is
> mathematical and how much is describing extent or limits.
1860.
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 5:29:42 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-26, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 22:28:03 -0600, Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>>Indeed, the word is popular because it's fun to say.
>
> I was able to guess what it meant because of its resemblanced to the Afrikaans
> word "spelonk", meaning a cave.
>
> I thought it may have been a hangover from the days when New York was known as
> Nieuw Amsterdam.
"Why they changed it, I can't say.
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 22:28:03 -0600, Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>>Indeed, the word is popular because it's fun to say.
>
> I was able to guess what it meant because of its resemblanced to the Afrikaans
> word "spelonk", meaning a cave.
>
> I thought it may have been a hangover from the days when New York was known as
> Nieuw Amsterdam.
People just liked it better that way."
> AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
> (estate).
caboodle", although I've seen "the whole caboodle" (without "kit") in
print. Googling, however, turns up a UK office supply store that I'd
never heard of: <caboodle.co.uk>.
--
No right of private conversation was enumerated in the Constitution.
I don't suppose it occurred to anyone at the time that it could be
prevented. [Whitfield Diffie]
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 5:26:04 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-26, Steve Hayes wrote:
> A few years ago I was re-reading Salinger's "The catcher in the rye" and the
> use of "kerb" struck me as anatopistic and inauthentic, but I checked with aue
> at the time, and it appeared that that was only in the UK edition, and was
> similar to the substitution of "sorcerer" for "philosopher" in the US editions
> of the Harry Potter books.
I don't think the "kerb" is nearly as bad --- that's just a spelling
> use of "kerb" struck me as anatopistic and inauthentic, but I checked with aue
> at the time, and it appeared that that was only in the UK edition, and was
> similar to the substitution of "sorcerer" for "philosopher" in the US editions
> of the Harry Potter books.
change, like "colo(u)r"; although IMHO literature should, unless it's
translated into another language or heavily modernized for ease of
reading, be printed with the authors' & editors' original agreed
spelling, punctuation, lexicon, &c.
The "sorcerer" thing was just stupid. And I've complained here before
about the mishandling of children's books the other way, e.g.,
"dustcart" in a British edition of a Judy Moody book.
--
"Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water,
or rain water, and only pure grain alcohol?" [Dr Strangelove]
Message has been deleted
charles
Sep 26, 2014, 5:43:16 AM9/26/14
to
In article <c2offbx...@news.ducksburg.com>,
Scotland.
--
From KT24
Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18
Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> On 2014-09-26, Steve Hayes wrote:
> > A few years ago I was re-reading Salinger's "The catcher in the rye"
> > and the use of "kerb" struck me as anatopistic and inauthentic, but I
> > checked with aue at the time, and it appeared that that was only in the
> > UK edition, and was similar to the substitution of "sorcerer" for
> > "philosopher" in the US editions of the Harry Potter books.
> I don't think the "kerb" is nearly as bad --- that's just a spelling
> change, like "colo(u)r"; although IMHO literature should, unless it's
> translated into another language or heavily modernized for ease of
> reading, be printed with the authors' & editors' original agreed
> spelling, punctuation, lexicon, &c.
> The "sorcerer" thing was just stupid. And I've complained here before
> about the mishandling of children's books the other way, e.g.,
> "dustcart" in a British edition of a Judy Moody book.
what's wrong with "dustcart" in BrE? It's the word I learned as a child in
> On 2014-09-26, Steve Hayes wrote:
> > A few years ago I was re-reading Salinger's "The catcher in the rye"
> > and the use of "kerb" struck me as anatopistic and inauthentic, but I
> > checked with aue at the time, and it appeared that that was only in the
> > UK edition, and was similar to the substitution of "sorcerer" for
> > "philosopher" in the US editions of the Harry Potter books.
> I don't think the "kerb" is nearly as bad --- that's just a spelling
> change, like "colo(u)r"; although IMHO literature should, unless it's
> translated into another language or heavily modernized for ease of
> reading, be printed with the authors' & editors' original agreed
> spelling, punctuation, lexicon, &c.
> The "sorcerer" thing was just stupid. And I've complained here before
> about the mishandling of children's books the other way, e.g.,
> "dustcart" in a British edition of a Judy Moody book.
Scotland.
--
From KT24
Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18
Message has been deleted
Message has been deleted
Message has been deleted
Message has been deleted
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 5:56:56 AM9/26/14
to
matter.
--
I look back with the greatest pleasure to the kindness and hospitality
I met with in Yorkshire, where I spent some of the happiest years of
my life. --- Sabine Baring-Gould
Message has been deleted
Message has been deleted
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 6:54:02 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-26, Lewis wrote:
> Okay, so one time? In band camp? Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> was all, like:
>
><http://calvinandhobbesagain.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ch860807.jpg>
That's the one, thanks!
--
When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him
whose? --- Don Marquis
> Okay, so one time? In band camp? Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> was all, like:
>> On 2014-09-26, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
>>> On 9/25/14 8:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>> On 26/09/14 07:15, R H Draney wrote:
>
>>>>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>>>>> "caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
>>>>> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>>>>
>>>> It works well in those very damp caves where you can hear dripping water
>>>> going spelunk ... spelunk ... spelunk.
>>>
>>> Indeed, the word is popular because it's fun to say.
>
>> Doesn't that feature in a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon?
>
> It does indeed.
>
>>> On 9/25/14 8:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>> On 26/09/14 07:15, R H Draney wrote:
>
>>>>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>>>>> "caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
>>>>> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>>>>
>>>> It works well in those very damp caves where you can hear dripping water
>>>> going spelunk ... spelunk ... spelunk.
>>>
>>> Indeed, the word is popular because it's fun to say.
>
>> Doesn't that feature in a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon?
>
>
><http://calvinandhobbesagain.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ch860807.jpg>
That's the one, thanks!
--
When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him
whose? --- Don Marquis
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 6:56:02 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-26, Lewis wrote:
> Okay, so one time? In band camp? Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> was all, like:
>> A few years ago I was re-reading Salinger's "The catcher in the rye" and the
>> use of "kerb" struck me as anatopistic and inauthentic, but I checked with aue
>> at the time, and it appeared that that was only in the UK edition, and was
>> similar to the substitution of "sorcerer" for "philosopher" in the US editions
>> of the Harry Potter books.
>
> Steering this thread off-course for a moment, my son was assigned that
> book for school last year and was unable to read it. He is a voracious
> reader, but he absolutely hated the book, hated all the characters,
> hated the writing, and basically skimmed the book just enough to be able
> to scrape a passing grade in the quiz.
>
> I was a bit shocked. "No, really, just read it," I said. "You might not
> like it now, but it will stay with you," I cajoled. Nothing worked.
>
> So, I sat down to re-read it, something I'd not done since I was about
> 14.
I had a brain fart as this point, then realized you were talking about
_Catcher_, not _Stone_.
> I can easily and completely understand his hatred for the book as it was
> a difficult slog. It is very much a product of its times, and much of the
> book didn't make the slightest sense to my son. "Yeah, right, he's
> wandering around New York City getting drunk and looking for sex. And
> he's what? 15? 16?" "right, of course the adult woman on the train is
> going to come on to him, please." And the writing is so dated with
> expired slang that sometimes it is basically unintelligible nonsense to
> a 21st century reader.
I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
who wants to read a teenager's whining?
--
Everybody says sex is obscene. The only true obscenity
is war. --- Henry Miller
> Okay, so one time? In band camp? Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> was all, like:
>> A few years ago I was re-reading Salinger's "The catcher in the rye" and the
>> use of "kerb" struck me as anatopistic and inauthentic, but I checked with aue
>> at the time, and it appeared that that was only in the UK edition, and was
>> similar to the substitution of "sorcerer" for "philosopher" in the US editions
>> of the Harry Potter books.
>
> book for school last year and was unable to read it. He is a voracious
> reader, but he absolutely hated the book, hated all the characters,
> hated the writing, and basically skimmed the book just enough to be able
> to scrape a passing grade in the quiz.
>
> I was a bit shocked. "No, really, just read it," I said. "You might not
> like it now, but it will stay with you," I cajoled. Nothing worked.
>
> So, I sat down to re-read it, something I'd not done since I was about
> 14.
I had a brain fart as this point, then realized you were talking about
_Catcher_, not _Stone_.
> I can easily and completely understand his hatred for the book as it was
> a difficult slog. It is very much a product of its times, and much of the
> book didn't make the slightest sense to my son. "Yeah, right, he's
> wandering around New York City getting drunk and looking for sex. And
> he's what? 15? 16?" "right, of course the adult woman on the train is
> going to come on to him, please." And the writing is so dated with
> expired slang that sometimes it is basically unintelligible nonsense to
> a 21st century reader.
I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
who wants to read a teenager's whining?
--
Everybody says sex is obscene. The only true obscenity
is war. --- Henry Miller
Peter Moylan
Sep 26, 2014, 7:54:22 AM9/26/14
to
On 26/09/14 19:00, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 22:59:31 -0700 (PDT), snide...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> On Thursday, September 25, 2014 well before midnite my time, R H Draney wrote:
>>> snide...@gmail.com filted:
>>>> On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:22:51 PM UTC-7, John Varela wrote:
>>
>>>>> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) =3D ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X=2
>>>>> is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
>>>>
>>>> Are you (John) speaking as a mathematician rather than as a programmer?
>>>
>>> A programmer would feel compelled to explain the distinction between a parameter
>>> and an argument....r
>>
>> Formal or actual?
>
> Passed by reference or by value?
Niklaus Wirth is called by name in Europe, and by value in America.
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 22:59:31 -0700 (PDT), snide...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> On Thursday, September 25, 2014 well before midnite my time, R H Draney wrote:
>>> snide...@gmail.com filted:
>>>> On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:22:51 PM UTC-7, John Varela wrote:
>>
>>>>> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) =3D ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X=2
>>>>> is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
>>>>
>>>> Are you (John) speaking as a mathematician rather than as a programmer?
>>>
>>> A programmer would feel compelled to explain the distinction between a parameter
>>> and an argument....r
>>
>> Formal or actual?
>
> Passed by reference or by value?
More seriously: the designers of Algol 60 (including Wirth) agonised
greatly over the "right" way to pass arguments. One of the factors that
drove them was an attempt to be reasonably consistent with mathematical
notation.
The designers of later programming languages (again including Wirth)
decided that the Algol 60 method was excessively complicated, and on top
of that it didn't always give the result that a typical programmer would
expect [1]. Since that time the choices (in most programming languages)
have been reduced down to three: pass a value in, pass a value out, or
pass a pointer to a variable. If anything more esoteric is desired the
programmer has to find ways to work around the rules, and we presume
that anyone who is competent to do that is also sufficiently experienced
to be aware of the traps.
[1] It took a while to formulate the principle that "if something is
difficult to understand, it's probably badly written". Interestingly,
the people who taught English composition came up with that idea a good
deal earlier.
--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Peter Moylan
Sep 26, 2014, 8:00:07 AM9/26/14
to
On 26/09/14 19:20, Snidely wrote:
>
> And parameters has a little life around 1820 and then is reborn around
> 1900, although that's all usages, and I'd need help to tell how much is
> mathematical and how much is describing extent or limits.
You're not going to get an answer to that unless someone has the
>
> And parameters has a little life around 1820 and then is reborn around
> 1900, although that's all usages, and I'd need help to tell how much is
> mathematical and how much is describing extent or limits.
patience to read the original sources.
My gut feeling is that in 1820 it would have meant boundaries, but by
1900 the mathematical meaning would have a significant influence,
because of the rapid advances in science in the latter half of the 19th
century.
Peter T. Daniels
Sep 26, 2014, 8:18:07 AM9/26/14
to
On Friday, September 26, 2014 1:13:12 AM UTC-4, Steve Hayes wrote:
> I was in the UK from 1966-1968, and things that I noticed about British usage
> have changed since then, and people on aue have told me that they were
> completely unaware of them. An example was that in London in 1966 what I
> caloled "chips" were called "French fried potatoes" in every eating place I
> entered in theb 6 months I lived and worked there. In Durham they were called
> "chips", but in London they were "French fried potatoes". From what I've ehard
> from people ion aue that was a temporary affectation, and it is no longer in
> use. If I were writing a book set in the UK in another period, and used
> "French fried potatoes", it would ap-pear as an anachronism.
The American for that is "French fries" or just "fries."
(Except for a prolonged period of idiocy when by Congressional fiat
in a fit of pique when they had to be called "Freedom fries" in the
Capitol restaurants, when France refused to participate in one of
bush's wars.)
Presumably on bags of frozen ones, the more explicit phrase is used.
> I was in the UK from 1966-1968, and things that I noticed about British usage
> have changed since then, and people on aue have told me that they were
> completely unaware of them. An example was that in London in 1966 what I
> caloled "chips" were called "French fried potatoes" in every eating place I
> entered in theb 6 months I lived and worked there. In Durham they were called
> "chips", but in London they were "French fried potatoes". From what I've ehard
> from people ion aue that was a temporary affectation, and it is no longer in
> use. If I were writing a book set in the UK in another period, and used
> "French fried potatoes", it would ap-pear as an anachronism.
The American for that is "French fries" or just "fries."
(Except for a prolonged period of idiocy when by Congressional fiat
in a fit of pique when they had to be called "Freedom fries" in the
Capitol restaurants, when France refused to participate in one of
bush's wars.)
Presumably on bags of frozen ones, the more explicit phrase is used.
Peter Moylan
Sep 26, 2014, 8:19:54 AM9/26/14
to
On 26/09/14 16:02, R H Draney wrote:
> "Beemer" = familiar term for a vehicle made by Bayerische Motoren Werke.
>
> "Bimmer" = the same vehicle as perceived by someone who either owns one or
> wishes to own one, and who considers such ownership or desired ownership his
> single most important personal characteristic.
I didn't dare tell this while the topic was live, but now that
wotsisname appears to have left the scene ...
A policeman was attending a car accident. One of the drivers was jumping
up and down and saying "My beemer. My beautiful beemer."
The copy said "You know, you rich people amuse me. You're so focused on
your car that you haven't noticed that your left arm has been sliced off
at the shoulder."
"Oh no. My Rolex!"
Peter Moylan
Sep 26, 2014, 8:23:55 AM9/26/14
to
On 26/09/14 19:08, Steve Hayes wrote:
> I thought it may have been a hangover from the days when New York was known as
> Nieuw Amsterdam.
>
> AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
> (estate).
Steve, now that I've caught you, I'd appreciate your comment on a thread
> I thought it may have been a hangover from the days when New York was known as
> Nieuw Amsterdam.
>
> AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
> (estate).
you might have skipped.
Does "spruiker" sound like an Afrikaans word to you?
FromTheRafters
Sep 26, 2014, 8:24:21 AM9/26/14
to
It happens that Peter T. Daniels formulated :
I've seen 'French Cut Potatoes', 'Shoestring Potatoes', Julienne
Potatoes', 'Wedge Cut Potatoes', and 'Crinkle Cut Potatoes' also used.
Potatoes', 'Wedge Cut Potatoes', and 'Crinkle Cut Potatoes' also used.
Peter Moylan
Sep 26, 2014, 8:24:57 AM9/26/14
to
On 26/09/14 19:14, Snidely wrote:
> Steve Hayes submitted this gripping article, maybe on Friday:
>
>> AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
>> (estate).
>
> Caboodles require kits to be whole.
Except, of course, when it's a kitten caboodle.
> Steve Hayes submitted this gripping article, maybe on Friday:
>
>> AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
>> (estate).
>
> Caboodles require kits to be whole.
Peter T. Daniels
Sep 26, 2014, 8:34:32 AM9/26/14
to
On Friday, September 26, 2014 6:56:02 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
[A Catcher in the Rye]
print.
Exactly one of Salinger's _New Yorker_ stories wasn't collected into
one of the books, and library runs of the magazine routinely find that
their copy has been vandalized.
They say that after he went into seclusion, he completed four novels,
and they are to be published shortly.
[A Catcher in the Rye]
> I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
> brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
> who wants to read a teenager's whining?
Millions and millions of people, apparently. It's never been out of
> brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
> who wants to read a teenager's whining?
print.
Exactly one of Salinger's _New Yorker_ stories wasn't collected into
one of the books, and library runs of the magazine routinely find that
their copy has been vandalized.
They say that after he went into seclusion, he completed four novels,
and they are to be published shortly.
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 8:40:09 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-26, Peter Moylan wrote:
> Niklaus Wirth is called by name in Europe, and by value in America.
badoompah
> Niklaus Wirth is called by name in Europe, and by value in America.
> More seriously: the designers of Algol 60 (including Wirth) agonised
> greatly over the "right" way to pass arguments. One of the factors that
> drove them was an attempt to be reasonably consistent with mathematical
> notation.
>
> The designers of later programming languages (again including Wirth)
> decided that the Algol 60 method was excessively complicated, and on top
> of that it didn't always give the result that a typical programmer would
> expect [1]. Since that time the choices (in most programming languages)
> have been reduced down to three: pass a value in, pass a value out, or
> pass a pointer to a variable. If anything more esoteric is desired the
> programmer has to find ways to work around the rules, and we presume
> that anyone who is competent to do that is also sufficiently experienced
> to be aware of the traps.
called "C as a Second Language for Native Speakers of Pascal". His
comment was: "Day one: pointer arithmetic ... we'll continue when all
you regain consciousness."
> [1] It took a while to formulate the principle that "if something is
> difficult to understand, it's probably badly written". Interestingly,
> the people who taught English composition came up with that idea a good
> deal earlier.
--
You know, there are many people in the country today who, through no
fault of their own, are sane. Some of them were born sane. Some of
them became sane later in their lives. --― Graham Chapman
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 8:40:53 AM9/26/14
to
--
A recent study conducted by Harvard University found that the average
American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study by the AMA found
that Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. This
means, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon.
http://www.cartalk.com/content/average-americans-mpg
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 8:48:40 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-26, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Friday, September 26, 2014 6:56:02 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
>
> [A Catcher in the Rye]
>> I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
>> brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
>> who wants to read a teenager's whining?
>
> Millions and millions of people, apparently. It's never been out of
> print.
It's possible that a lot of the sales are accounted for by use in
> On Friday, September 26, 2014 6:56:02 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
>
> [A Catcher in the Rye]
>> I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
>> brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
>> who wants to read a teenager's whining?
>
> Millions and millions of people, apparently. It's never been out of
> print.
schools & by people who want to have it on the shelf since it's a
modern classic.
> Exactly one of Salinger's _New Yorker_ stories wasn't collected into
> one of the books, and library runs of the magazine routinely find that
> their copy has been vandalized.
don't like it.
--
Specifications are for the weak & timid!
--- Klingon Programmer's Guide
Athel Cornish-Bowden
Sep 26, 2014, 9:24:46 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-25 22:22:51 +0200, "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> said:
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
> Ram) wrote:
>
>> Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
>>> "Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
>>> become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>>
>> A »parameter« to me is something like »x« in »f(x):=x²«.
>> I wonder what the meaning of »parameter« in the seventies might have been.
>
> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X
A dictionary (I don't remember which) was once ridiculed for defined
"parameter" as "variable constant", but actually it isn't completely
stupid. The SOED (quoting from memory) says that it is a quantity that
is constant in a particular case considered but can be reated as
variable in a more general context.
Your a, b and c are not parameters if they are truly constant, but
become parameters if we ask questions like "what happens to f(x) if a
increases?"
Even if we believe that a, b and c are truly constant, we probably
don't know their true values, so we must allow different possibilities
when trying to estimate them. They are then parameters.
--
athel
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
> Ram) wrote:
>
>> Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
>>> "Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
>>> become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>>
>> A »parameter« to me is something like »x« in »f(x):=x²«.
>> I wonder what the meaning of »parameter« in the seventies might have been.
>
> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X
A dictionary (I don't remember which) was once ridiculed for defined
"parameter" as "variable constant", but actually it isn't completely
stupid. The SOED (quoting from memory) says that it is a quantity that
is constant in a particular case considered but can be reated as
variable in a more general context.
Your a, b and c are not parameters if they are truly constant, but
become parameters if we ask questions like "what happens to f(x) if a
increases?"
Even if we believe that a, b and c are truly constant, we probably
don't know their true values, so we must allow different possibilities
when trying to estimate them. They are then parameters.
--
athel
Jerry Friedman
Sep 26, 2014, 9:35:30 AM9/26/14
to
On 9/26/14 3:54 AM, Lewis wrote:
> Okay, so one time? In band camp? Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> was all, like:
> Okay, so one time? In band camp? Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> was all, like:
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 22:28:03 -0600, Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>
>>> On 9/25/14 8:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>> On 26/09/14 07:15, R H Draney wrote:
>>>>> Tony Cooper filted:
>
>>> On 9/25/14 8:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>> On 26/09/14 07:15, R H Draney wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:18:39 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>>>>>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:31:05 PM UTC-4, Derek Turner wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The worst was a barbaric term for
>>>>>>>> 'caving' (Derbyshire) or 'potholing' (Yorkshire) some thing like
>>>>>>>> 'kerplunking'? Any road up, not something anyone in Yorkshire would say.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> spelunking
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The OP did not provide the context regarding the use of spelunking. A
>>>>>> North American visitor to the area would use "spelunking". The
>>>>>> Yorkshire Dales are known world-wide for many caves there. Experienced
>>>>>> British cavers would be quite familiar with the term.
>>>>>
>>>>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>>>>> "caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
>>>>> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>>>>
>>>> It works well in those very damp caves where you can hear dripping water
>>>> going spelunk ... spelunk ... spelunk.
>>>
>>> Indeed, the word is popular because it's fun to say.
>
>>>>> "Spelunking" is a term used by the pretentious for what normal folks call
>>>>> "caving"...the same sort of people say "philately" and "numismatics" where mere
>>>>> mortals refer to "stamp-collecting" and "coin-collecting"....r
>>>>
>>>> It works well in those very damp caves where you can hear dripping water
>>>> going spelunk ... spelunk ... spelunk.
>>>
>>> Indeed, the word is popular because it's fun to say.
>
>> I was able to guess what it meant because of its resemblanced to the Afrikaans
>> word "spelonk", meaning a cave.
>
>> word "spelonk", meaning a cave.
>
>> I thought it may have been a hangover from the days when New York was known as
>> Nieuw Amsterdam.
Apparently Dutch survived in New York City till the second half of the
>> Nieuw Amsterdam.
19th century. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) remembered hearing his
paternal grandparents speak it, though the only thing he learned was the
nursery rhyme "Trippe Trappe Troontjes", which he would hear again on a
visit to South Africa. According to this site, Dutch lasted longer in
the Catskill Mountains of New York (where there are caves worth spelunking).
http://mondayeveningclub.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-we-dont-all-speak-dutch-language.html
> I believe the Latin for cave is related.
Yep. The OED says of the obsolete noun "spelunk", meaning "cave":
"Etymology: < Latin spelunca or Old French spelonque, spelunque.
Compare Middle Dutch spelonke, spelunke (Dutch spelonk), Middle High
German and German spelunke."
By the way, it says "spelunker" is "N. Amer. slang". I'd agree that
it's not a word like "philately" or "numismatics".
>> AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
>> (estate).
>
The OED says "caboodle" is "Supposed to be a corruption of the phrase
kit and boodle", and of "boodle" it says
"Etymology: Origin and history obscure; but the modern U.S. boodle , in
sense 1 ["crowd, pack, lot"], must be the same as Markham's buddle :
sense 2 [counterfeit money] (also only in U.S.) may be a different word;
it suggests Dutch boedel ‘estate, possession, inheritance, stock’, which
it is not so easy to connect with sense 1."
--
Jerry Friedman
Athel Cornish-Bowden
Sep 26, 2014, 10:22:01 AM9/26/14
to
could find back numbers of the Scientific American in the library that
hadn't been vandalized or gone missing or just fallen to bits. That was
in the days when libraries still bought periodicals, and, indeed, in
the days when the Scientific American was more than a comic.
--
athel
Jerry Friedman
Sep 26, 2014, 10:20:57 AM9/26/14
to
I must add that the first hit I can find at GB is from /Time/:
"SPELUNKER? Do you like to explore speluncae � caves?"
So maybe it was a borrowing from Latin, possibly a whimsical one.
--
Jerry Friedman
Peter T. Daniels
Sep 26, 2014, 10:32:29 AM9/26/14
to
Those would all be ready for dumping into the deep-fryer, rather
than ready to be popped in the microwave, right?
Peter T. Daniels
Sep 26, 2014, 10:36:35 AM9/26/14
to
On Friday, September 26, 2014 8:48:40 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2014-09-26, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Friday, September 26, 2014 6:56:02 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
> > [A Catcher in the Rye]
> >> I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
> >> brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
> >> who wants to read a teenager's whining?
> > Millions and millions of people, apparently. It's never been out of
> > print.
>
> It's possible that a lot of the sales are accounted for by use in
> schools & by people who want to have it on the shelf since it's a
> modern classic.
And what makes something a classic?
> On 2014-09-26, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Friday, September 26, 2014 6:56:02 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
> > [A Catcher in the Rye]
> >> I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
> >> brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
> >> who wants to read a teenager's whining?
> > Millions and millions of people, apparently. It's never been out of
> > print.
>
> It's possible that a lot of the sales are accounted for by use in
> schools & by people who want to have it on the shelf since it's a
> modern classic.
(It's not too visible on the shelf. The current printing isn't even red.)
> > Exactly one of Salinger's _New Yorker_ stories wasn't collected into
> > one of the books, and library runs of the magazine routinely find that
> > their copy has been vandalized.
>
> Hmm, depending on the nature of the vandalism,
the journal *Language*, from which Chomskysreviewofskinnersverbalbehavior
is missing.
> that might mean people don't like it.
out of _New Yorker_ sets.
FromTheRafters
Sep 26, 2014, 10:40:51 AM9/26/14
to
Peter T. Daniels has brought this to us :
Yes, on a menu I would expect "Fries" or "Baked" for potato choices.
Peter T. Daniels
Sep 26, 2014, 10:41:00 AM9/26/14
to
On Friday, September 26, 2014 10:22:01 AM UTC-4, athel...@yahoo wrote:
> One of the advantages of moving from the UK to France was that one
> could find back numbers of the Scientific American in the library that
> hadn't been vandalized or gone missing or just fallen to bits. That was
> in the days when libraries still bought periodicals, and, indeed, in
> the days when the Scientific American was more than a comic.
No "the" before magazine titles. In the New Yorker, it's part of the
> One of the advantages of moving from the UK to France was that one
> could find back numbers of the Scientific American in the library that
> hadn't been vandalized or gone missing or just fallen to bits. That was
> in the days when libraries still bought periodicals, and, indeed, in
> the days when the Scientific American was more than a comic.
title.
*the Time
*the Newsweek
*the US News and World Report
*the Playboy
*the Popular Mechanics
*the Fantasy and Science Fiction
*the Stereo Review
(but The Gramophone)
Peter T. Daniels
Sep 26, 2014, 10:46:33 AM9/26/14
to
On Friday, September 26, 2014 9:35:30 AM UTC-4, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> Apparently Dutch survived in New York City till the second half of the
> 19th century. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) remembered hearing his
> paternal grandparents speak it, though the only thing he learned was the
> nursery rhyme "Trippe Trappe Troontjes", which he would hear again on a
> visit to South Africa. According to this site, Dutch lasted longer in
> the Catskill Mountains of New York (where there are caves worth spelunking).
There were apparently _monolingual_ Dutch-speakers in New York City
> Apparently Dutch survived in New York City till the second half of the
> 19th century. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) remembered hearing his
> paternal grandparents speak it, though the only thing he learned was the
> nursery rhyme "Trippe Trappe Troontjes", which he would hear again on a
> visit to South Africa. According to this site, Dutch lasted longer in
> the Catskill Mountains of New York (where there are caves worth spelunking).
until the later 18th century. That generation's grandchildren, or
possibly children, would have been TR's grandparents.
The Catskills was also home to a sizable Huguenot population, and when
we had a couple of summer vacations in the mid 50s near Poughkeepsie,
a highlight was "Old Stone House Day" in New Paltz, which despite the
name celebrated its Huguenot rather than its Dutch past. There were,
and presumably still are, good-sized 17th-century houses that were
occupied by ordinary families.
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 11:00:22 AM9/26/14
to
somewhere in the depths of my hard drives, neither it, nor the programs it
compiles, will run without special workarounds (a thing called DOSbox), so I
haven't looked at it for years.
>[1] It took a while to formulate the principle that "if something is
>difficult to understand, it's probably badly written". Interestingly,
>the people who taught English composition came up with that idea a good
>deal earlier.
that if an undergrad can understand it, it's pre-scientific.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 11:05:40 AM9/26/14
to
On Fri, 26 Sep 2014 15:24:46 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>On 2014-09-25 22:22:51 +0200, "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> said:
>
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
>> Ram) wrote:
>>
>>> Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
>>>> "Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
>>>> become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>>>
>>> A »parameter« to me is something like »x« in »f(x):=x²«.
>>> I wonder what the meaning of »parameter« in the seventies might have been.
>>
>> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X
>> is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
>
>A dictionary (I don't remember which) was once ridiculed for defined
>"parameter" as "variable constant", but actually it isn't completely
>stupid. The SOED (quoting from memory) says that it is a quantity that
>is constant in a particular case considered but can be reated as
>variable in a more general context.
My Concise Oxford said that when I looked it up, so I did come to think of it
<athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>On 2014-09-25 22:22:51 +0200, "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> said:
>
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:38:41 UTC, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan
>> Ram) wrote:
>>
>>> Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> writes:
>>>> "Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
>>>> become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>>>
>>> A »parameter« to me is something like »x« in »f(x):=x²«.
>>> I wonder what the meaning of »parameter« in the seventies might have been.
>>
>> The constants a, b, and c in f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c are parameters. X
>> is a variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
>
>A dictionary (I don't remember which) was once ridiculed for defined
>"parameter" as "variable constant", but actually it isn't completely
>stupid. The SOED (quoting from memory) says that it is a quantity that
>is constant in a particular case considered but can be reated as
>variable in a more general context.
as a variable constant.
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 11:05:09 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-26, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Friday, September 26, 2014 8:48:40 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
>> On 2014-09-26, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> > On Friday, September 26, 2014 6:56:02 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
>
>> > [A Catcher in the Rye]
>> >> I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
>> >> brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
>> >> who wants to read a teenager's whining?
>> > Millions and millions of people, apparently. It's never been out of
>> > print.
>>
>> It's possible that a lot of the sales are accounted for by use in
>> schools & by people who want to have it on the shelf since it's a
>> modern classic.
>
> And what makes something a classic?
"a book no-one reads but everyone wants to have read" or "a book
> On Friday, September 26, 2014 8:48:40 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
>> On 2014-09-26, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> > On Friday, September 26, 2014 6:56:02 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
>
>> > [A Catcher in the Rye]
>> >> I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
>> >> brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
>> >> who wants to read a teenager's whining?
>> > Millions and millions of people, apparently. It's never been out of
>> > print.
>>
>> It's possible that a lot of the sales are accounted for by use in
>> schools & by people who want to have it on the shelf since it's a
>> modern classic.
>
> And what makes something a classic?
people want other to think they have read" (I can't remember where I
heard those)
I've read it. I don't recall resenting reading it at the time, but I
would't bother reading it again.
...
>> > Exactly one of Salinger's _New Yorker_ stories wasn't collected into
>> > one of the books, and library runs of the magazine routinely find that
>> > their copy has been vandalized.
>>
>> Hmm, depending on the nature of the vandalism,
>
> Neatly cut or torn out. (Just like the U of Chicago's print copy of
> the journal *Language*, from which Chomskysreviewofskinnersverbalbehavior
> is missing.
OK, but if people write "this sux" in the margins, that's a different
>> > one of the books, and library runs of the magazine routinely find that
>> > their copy has been vandalized.
>>
>> Hmm, depending on the nature of the vandalism,
>
> Neatly cut or torn out. (Just like the U of Chicago's print copy of
> the journal *Language*, from which Chomskysreviewofskinnersverbalbehavior
> is missing.
story.
--
A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys
itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste
and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.
--- Ignatius J Reilly
Katy Jennison
Sep 26, 2014, 11:16:23 AM9/26/14
to
On 26/09/2014 11:03, Lewis wrote:
> Okay, so one time? In band camp? Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> was all, like:
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 16:32:32 +0100, Katy Jennison
> Okay, so one time? In band camp? Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> was all, like:
>> <ka...@spamtrap.kjennison.com> wrote:
>
>>> On 25/09/2014 12:24, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>>> I've been reading a novel set in two different periods, partly in the late
>>>> 20th or early 21st century, and partly in the early 1920s.
>>>>
>>>> The parts set in the earlier period are told in the form of letters of the
>>>> main character to his father, and so are contemporary with the period. I'd be
>>>> reluctant to write anything like that, for fear of using anachronistic
>>>> language and spotted several instances that I thought might be anachronistic,
>>>> though I'm not absolutely sure of that, so I'm asking here to see if peoplel
>>>> with access to more resources can check when these terms were likely or not
>>>> likely to have been used.
>>>>
>>>> parameters (in the 1970s malapropistic sense)
>>>>
>>>> proven (instead of "proved" as the past tense of proved)
>>>>
>>>> teenagers (refering to the youthfulness of solfiers in WW1).
>>>>
>>>> Concerning the last, I thought "boys" or "youths" would be more likely to be
>>>> used than "teenagers" in the 1920s, and thought it only came into widespread
>>>> use in the 1940s or 1950s.
>>>>
>>>> I tried to look it up online, but found nothing about the history of the word,
>>>> but found some other things (ie not in the book I was reading) that struck me
>>>> as weird -- namely references to puberty and "first ejaculation". The writers
>>>> were obviously looking for some male equivalent to "first menstruation", but
>>>> it stuck me as an utterly daft term (and concept), yet it seems to be in quite
>>>> widespread use.
>>>>
>>>> "Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
>>>> become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>>>> perhaps because so many people who did know what it means ridiculed those who
>>>> "Parameters", in the sense in which the auther was using it, seems to have
>>>> become popular in the 1970s, and gradually become unfashionable sinse then,
>>>> used it without knowing what it meant. I very rarely hear it nowadays.
>>>>
>>>> The book is "journeys in the dead season" by Spencer Jordan.
>>>> http://www.spencerjordan.com/
>>>
>>> Teen-ager isn't recorded before 1941. It started out with a hyphen, and
>>> didn't lose it until some time in the late 1950s. So I'd be extremely
>>> doubtful about "teenager" in the 1920s.
>>>
>>> The use of "teenager" with no hyphen was the one anachronism that struck
>>> me in Sarah Waters' otherwise perfectly pitched novel 'The Night Watch',
>>> set in and around the second world war.
>
>> Yes, that's exactly the kind of thing that makes me uneasy when reading a
>> book. It's the kind of thing that I would hope book editors would be on the
>> lookout for, and warn authors about.
>
> Downton Abbey has people specifically watching for anachronistic
> language, and still heaps of it flits in; granted some of that is
> intentional to make the speech more easily understood by the audience,
> but if a production team of that size can't do it, an editor certainly
> can't.
My impression is that the people employed as historical fact-checkers,
sub-editors, language consultants, etc, are likely to be in their
twenties or thirties, far too young to have a sense of what's likely for
the period in question and what needs to be checked.
I remember a series of UK TV programmes including 'The 1900 House' and
'The 1940s House'. In each of these a present-day family had been
persuaded, conned or bribed to spend two or three months living as a
family would have lived at that time, using and doing nothing
anachronistic. There was a young man acting as historical adviser, who
purported to explain to the families the practices and gadgets and so
on. People of my generation, never mind my parents', were jumping up
and down in front of their TVs yelling "You'd never use one of those for
that!" and "That's not how that's done!"
The programmes' [producers seemed to have entirely overlooked the fact
that the practices and gadgets of 1900 were perfectly familiar to people
who'd been born in 1910 and who were (at the time of the TV programmes)
still very much alive and capable of explaining them, and even more so
for the 1940s.
--
Katy Jennison
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 11:19:49 AM9/26/14
to
time I watch it I'll let you know if I spot any.
I think that most written language of the 1920s would be understandable today,
and most, except slang, from the preceding 200 years. I read Boswell's "Life
of Johnson" without difficulty, and the main unfamiliarity was the
punctuation.
A few of the immediate post-WW1 usages might strike one as a bit odd --
"salient", for example, is quite rare today, but could still be understood.
>For example, it would never have even occurred to me to check that
>teenager was a new word.
I suppose I am aware of it because when I was a teenager it seemed to be
regarded as a new word by the older generation, who hadn't grown up with it,
and so were never aware of having been teenagers themselves.
>> I think that word became widespread when the world began recovering from the
>> austerity of WW2, and marketers realised that this was a demographic cohort
>> that they could sell stuff to, and so they used the word to identify, and to
>> some extent create their target market. .
>
>If I had to guess it was more liekly because previously, a lot of people
>in that age range were off working and not much different from adults
>except perhaps they still lived with their parents. There was no need.
>Leaving school after 8th grade was still quite common through the 30s
>and many teenagers didn't continue on to high school, so they would be
>working some sort of labor job at 14, probably side-by-side with their
>fathers or mothers.
And giving their pay to their parents for board and lodging rather than buying
records (whether shellac, vinyl, CD or MP3).
John Dawkins
Sep 26, 2014, 11:18:06 AM9/26/14
to
In article <8a1db4c0-d124-4c1a...@googlegroups.com>,
> Exactly one of Salinger's _New Yorker_ stories wasn't collected into
> one of the books, and library runs of the magazine routinely find that
> their copy has been vandalized.
>
> They say that after he went into seclusion, he completed four novels,
> and they are to be published shortly.
--
J.
> On Friday, September 26, 2014 6:56:02 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
>
> [A Catcher in the Rye]
> > I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
> > brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
> > who wants to read a teenager's whining?
>
> Millions and millions of people, apparently. It's never been out of
> print.
Blame Mel "Jerry Fletcher" Gibson for that.
>
> [A Catcher in the Rye]
> > I can't remember where I came across this explanation: the book is
> > brilliantly written from the point of view of a whiny teenager --- but
> > who wants to read a teenager's whining?
>
> Millions and millions of people, apparently. It's never been out of
> print.
> Exactly one of Salinger's _New Yorker_ stories wasn't collected into
> one of the books, and library runs of the magazine routinely find that
> their copy has been vandalized.
>
> They say that after he went into seclusion, he completed four novels,
> and they are to be published shortly.
J.
Adam Funk
Sep 26, 2014, 11:16:44 AM9/26/14
to
On 2014-09-26, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Sep 2014 21:54:22 +1000, Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org> wrote:
>>The designers of later programming languages (again including Wirth)
>>decided that the Algol 60 method was excessively complicated, and on top
>>of that it didn't always give the result that a typical programmer would
>>expect [1]. Since that time the choices (in most programming languages)
>>have been reduced down to three: pass a value in, pass a value out, or
>>pass a pointer to a variable. If anything more esoteric is desired the
>>programmer has to find ways to work around the rules, and we presume
>>that anyone who is competent to do that is also sufficiently experienced
>>to be aware of the traps.
>
> I never did use Algol, or even try to. And though I may have a Pascal compiler
> somewhere in the depths of my hard drives, neither it, nor the programs it
> compiles, will run without special workarounds (a thing called DOSbox), so I
> haven't looked at it for years.
Pascal is available for modern free *N*X systems:
> On Fri, 26 Sep 2014 21:54:22 +1000, Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org> wrote:
>>The designers of later programming languages (again including Wirth)
>>decided that the Algol 60 method was excessively complicated, and on top
>>of that it didn't always give the result that a typical programmer would
>>expect [1]. Since that time the choices (in most programming languages)
>>have been reduced down to three: pass a value in, pass a value out, or
>>pass a pointer to a variable. If anything more esoteric is desired the
>>programmer has to find ways to work around the rules, and we presume
>>that anyone who is competent to do that is also sufficiently experienced
>>to be aware of the traps.
>
> I never did use Algol, or even try to. And though I may have a Pascal compiler
> somewhere in the depths of my hard drives, neither it, nor the programs it
> compiles, will run without special workarounds (a thing called DOSbox), so I
> haven't looked at it for years.
<https://packages.debian.org/source/sid/fpc>
The Ubuntu repositories have quite a range of old cra^W languages
available: Pascal, various BASICs, GNU FORTRAN 95, Algol 68, an APL
knock-off (I think) called A+, etc. But whenever I think about
recreating something I did years ago in BASIC or FORTRAN, I think
about how much hassle I/O is in those languages, so I used Python
instead for all my fun programming.
>>[1] It took a while to formulate the principle that "if something is
>>difficult to understand, it's probably badly written". Interestingly,
>>the people who taught English composition came up with that idea a good
>>deal earlier.
>
> Indeed, but most of the academics I have had dealings with seem to believe
> that if an undergrad can understand it, it's pre-scientific.
<http://sciblogs.co.nz/misc-ience/2011/08/11/how-people-in-science-see-each-other/>
<http://sciblogs.co.nz/misc-ience/files/2011/08/Sciencevision.jpg>
(enlarged)
--
We do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak. Bugs
are good for building character in the user.
Katy Jennison
Sep 26, 2014, 11:32:26 AM9/26/14
to
set in (say) the 1920s don't seem to have read any novels which were
actually written in the 1920s, which would have given them clues about
the language characteristics of the time.
--
Katy Jennison
Steve Hayes
Sep 26, 2014, 11:38:02 AM9/26/14
to
On Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:23:55 +1000, Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org> wrote:
>On 26/09/14 19:08, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>> I thought it may have been a hangover from the days when New York was known as
>> Nieuw Amsterdam.
>>
>> AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
>> (estate).
>
>Steve, now that I've caught you, I'd appreciate your comment on a thread
>you might have skipped.
Sorry, yes, I do skip some threads -- usually ones where the first word in the
>On 26/09/14 19:08, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>> I thought it may have been a hangover from the days when New York was known as
>> Nieuw Amsterdam.
>>
>> AmE also seems to have "caboodle" which resembles the Afrikaans "boedel"
>> (estate).
>
>Steve, now that I've caught you, I'd appreciate your comment on a thread
>you might have skipped.
subject line begins with a lowert-case letter, or where the first line of the
first message goes right off the page.
>Does "spruiker" sound like an Afrikaans word to you?
And having looked in a dictionary, I couldn't find it, so if it is an
Afrikaans word it must be new slang.
Charles Bishop
Sep 26, 2014, 11:43:19 AM9/26/14
to
In article <m03ltq$o93$1...@news2.open-news-network.org>,
All of those are distinct from what you would get if you wanted french
fries, or french fried potatoes. Mostly it's the shape, but preparation
is also part of the description.
--
charles
fries, or french fried potatoes. Mostly it's the shape, but preparation
is also part of the description.
--
charles
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