Matching two box sizes

[Dr J R Stockton]

In essence, I have, with both columns sized to 50% in an earlier row,

<tr>
<th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>
<td style="border:1px solid black;">XYZ</td>
</tr>

and, purely on aesthetic grounds, I would line the vertical positioning
of the tops and bottoms of the two visible boxes to align perfectly in
all browsers. Any suggestions? The first element must look like a
<pre> and accept input.

The actual page is currently (6.5kB)
<http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. E-mail, see Home Page. Turnpike v6.05.
Website <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - w. FAQish topics, links, acronyms
PAS EXE etc. : <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/> - see in 00index.htm
Dates - miscdate.htm estrdate.htm js-dates.htm pas-time.htm critdate.htm etc.

[dorayme]

In article <MR21vfBb...@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid>,

Dr J R Stockton <repl...@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:

> In essence, I have, with both columns sized to 50% in an earlier row,
>
> <tr>
> <th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>
> <td style="border:1px solid black;">XYZ</td>
> </tr>
>
> and, purely on aesthetic grounds, I would line the vertical positioning
> of the tops and bottoms of the two visible boxes to align perfectly in
> all browsers. Any suggestions? The first element must look like a
> <pre> and accept input.
>
> The actual page is currently (6.5kB)
> <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.

<th (is there a very good argument against simply td here?)
colspan="2" style=""><textarea id="codeInput" rows="10" cols="1"
style="border: 1px solid black; width:100%; margin:0; padding:0;
display: block;"

Adding display: block gives a marginal improvement.

--
dorayme

[Gus Richter]

On 11/24/2012 12:28 PM, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>
> In essence, I have, with both columns sized to 50% in an earlier row,
>
> <tr>
> <th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>
> <td style="border:1px solid black;">XYZ</td>
> </tr>
>
> and, purely on aesthetic grounds, I would line the vertical positioning
> of the tops and bottoms of the two visible boxes to align perfectly in
> all browsers. Any suggestions? The first element must look like a
> <pre> and accept input.
>
> The actual page is currently (6.5kB)
> <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.

Here is another way with manual adjustments. There is probably a better
way to design this in order to align the two perfectly. This however may
be able to give some ideas:


<div style="width:100%;text-align:center;">
<strong style="font-size:100%;font-weight:bold;display:block;">Test
MathJax code below</strong>
<div #left style="width:49.5%;margin-top:.5em;float:left;">
<div style="width:50%;float:left;">
<input type="button" id="codeButtonDisp" value="Use display mode"
onclick="processCodeDisplay();"
onfocus="processCodeDisplay();">
</div>
<div style="width:50%;float:left;">
<input type="button" id="codeButtonInline" value="Use inline mode"
onclick="processCodeInline();">
</div>
<textarea ID="codeInput" rows=10 cols=1
style="border:1px solid black; width:100%; margin:.4em 0 0; padding:0;"
onkeydown="if (event.keyCode!==9) { ; } else {
document.getElementById('codeButtonDisp').focus(); return false; }">
x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}
</textarea>
</div>
<div #right style="width:48.5%;margin-top:.5em;float:right;">
<strong style="font-size:100%;font-weight:bold;">MathJax output
appears here</strong>
<div id="outputDiv"
style="height:11.1em; margin-top:.6em; border:1px solid black;
text-align:center; vertical-align:middle; background: #EEE;">
</div>
</div>
</div>

--
Gus

[Jukka K. Korpela]

2012-11-24 19:28, Dr J R Stockton wrote:

> In essence, I have, with both columns sized to 50% in an earlier row,
>
> <tr>
> <th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>
> <td style="border:1px solid black;">XYZ</td>
> </tr>

The <textarea> markup is invalid, but I presume that you intentionally
want to use each browser's default value for the cols attribute (which
is what happens in practice).

> and, purely on aesthetic grounds, I would line the vertical positioning
> of the tops and bottoms of the two visible boxes to align perfectly in
> all browsers.

The problem is that <textarea> has its own border within a cell, whereas
the <td> has cell border. It's very tricky to deal with this, if the
<textarea> needs to preserve its default border.

> Any suggestions? The first element must look like a
> <pre> and accept input.

By default, a <textarea> does not quite look like a <pre>, since
<textarea> has default border. Besides, on some browsers, a <textarea>
has vertical scrollbar by default.

I presume you still want a border for <textarea>. If it is OK to use
your own border there, instead of letting each browser use its own
default border for <textarea>, then things get easier:

<style>
.xyz th {
border: solid 1px gray;
}
.xyz td {
border: solid 1px black;
}
.xyz textarea {
border: none;
overflow: auto;
}
</style>
<table class=xyz>

<tr>
<th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>

<td>XYZ</td>
</tr>
</table>

> The actual page is currently (6.5kB)
> <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.

The server currently responds "Service unavailable" (response code 500
Internal Error).

Followups trimmed to comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[tlvp]

On Sat, 24 Nov 2012 17:28:59 +0000, Dr J R Stockton wrote:

> The actual page is currently (6.5kB)
> <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.

Alas, either merlin itself or my Safari browser reports:

<h2>Service unavailable</h2>

so there's little I can see to respond to, sorry. Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

2012-11-25 10:23, tlvp wrote under
Re: Matching two box sizes:

>> <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.
>
> Alas, either merlin itself or my Safari browser reports:
>
> <h2>Service unavailable</h2>

It took me some time to find a tool that tells exactly what happens (as
seen from a browser/UA perspective), since browsers (and some utilities)
don't make this quite clear. Using

http://www.rexswain.com/cgi-bin/httpview.cgi

one can see that in this case, the response headers have

HTTP/1.0�500�Internal�Error

and the accompanying error document has

<h2>Service�unavailable</h2>

So browsers are just displaying the error document they get (which is
not very informative, but after all this is a server malfunction,
maintenance, or some other irregular situation, so what can you expect?).

Except IE. In its (in)famous wisdom, it decides that the server-supplied
error document is too short in this case and shows its own boilerplate
instead. This need not be as bad as it sounds. For the 500 error code,
it explains that the page cannot be displayed and the most probable
causes are maintenance of the site and programming error in the site.

The IE behavior can be changed, by the user, in the Internet settings,
tab "Advanced", by unchecking the checkbox for "friendly" or "easy"
error messages (or whatever they call this feature in each language
version).

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Evertjan.]

Dr J R Stockton wrote on 24 nov 2012 in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets:

>
> In essence, I have, with both columns sized to 50% in an earlier row,
>
> <tr>
> <th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>
> <td style="border:1px solid black;">XYZ</td>
> </tr>
>
> and, purely on aesthetic grounds, I would line the vertical positioning
> of the tops and bottoms of the two visible boxes to align perfectly in
> all browsers. Any suggestions?

<table>

<tr>
<th>
<textarea rows=10>
</textarea>
</th>
<td>

<textarea rows=10 style="border:1px solid black;" readonly>
XYZ
</textarea>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

================

In Chrome both are individually mouse-enlargable.




--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Please change the x'es to dots in my emailaddress)

[Dr J R Stockton]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <15ijb49p0xm6$.bl2vcflzbx
34....@40tude.net>, Sun, 25 Nov 2012 03:23:32, tlvp
<mPiOsUcB...@att.net> posted:

>On Sat, 24 Nov 2012 17:28:59 +0000, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>
>> The actual page is currently (6.5kB)
>> <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.
>
>Alas, either merlin itself or my Safari browser reports:
>
><h2>Service unavailable</h2>
>
>so there's little I can see to respond to, sorry. Cheers, -- tlvp

But merlin ceased operation 16 years ago.

When our section first needed local domain names, I, as first user, was
asked to choose a topic (e.g. towns, physicists, insects, wizards, ...)
and a name in it. So I chose the name "merlin", without stating the
topic - that could obviously be aircraft, birds, wizards, aircraft
engines, radio telescopes, RN ships, etc. The next user, however, was
Mike Swan, which settled the topic. When I got a home account, the
choice of "merlyn" was then obvious, especially to a reader of TH White.

That report was delivered by the web server used by merlyn, as HTML, in
lieu of my web page which it could not then reach.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London UK Reply address via Home Page.
news:comp.lang.javascript FAQ <http://www.jibbering.com/faq/index.html>.
<http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/js-index.htm> jscr maths, dates, sources.
<http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> TP/BP/Delphi/jscr/&c, FAQ items, links.

[Dr J R Stockton]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <XnsA116BEEEF49BDeejj99@1
94.109.133.133>, Sun, 25 Nov 2012 18:46:10, Evertjan. <exxjxw.hannivoort
@inter.nl.net> posted:

>Dr J R Stockton wrote on 24 nov 2012 in
>comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets:
>
>>
>> In essence, I have, with both columns sized to 50% in an earlier row,
>>
>> <tr>
>> <th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>
>> <td style="border:1px solid black;">XYZ</td>
>> </tr>
>>
>> and, purely on aesthetic grounds, I would line the vertical positioning
>> of the tops and bottoms of the two visible boxes to align perfectly in
>> all browsers. Any suggestions?
>
><table>
><tr>
> <th>
> <textarea rows=10>
> </textarea>
> </th>
> <td>
> <textarea rows=10 style="border:1px solid black;" readonly>
> XYZ
> </textarea>
> </td>
></tr>
></table>

No good at all. The textarea is for user input, the next TD is for the
result of pressing a button. How that result is encoded I do not know,
but the TD itself is written into and displays "typeset" mathematics -
as in my euler304.htm which, elsewhere, I've been tempting you to read.

By the way, after reading that, you'll be able to fix at least one error
in <http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangepunt> - see "Overleg".

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. Mail via homepage. Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQqish topics, acronyms and links;
Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.

[Dr J R Stockton]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <k8se5f$4sa$1@dont-
email.me>, Sun, 25 Nov 2012 08:34:23, Jukka K. Korpela
<jkor...@cs.tut.fi> posted:

>2012-11-24 19:28, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>
>> In essence, I have, with both columns sized to 50% in an earlier row,
>>
>> <tr>
>> <th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>
>> <td style="border:1px solid black;">XYZ</td>
>> </tr>
>
>The <textarea> markup is invalid, but I presume that you intentionally
>want to use each browser's default value for the cols attribute (which
>is what happens in practice).

The <textarea> markup is valid, according to <http://validator.w3.org/>;
"http://validator.w3.org/". The above code is the essence; you should
have waited on seeing the real page before picking unreal nits. There
is also for example cols=1, and some style.

>> and, purely on aesthetic grounds, I would line the vertical positioning
>> of the tops and bottoms of the two visible boxes to align perfectly in
>> all browsers.
>
>The problem is that <textarea> has its own border within a cell,
>whereas the <td> has cell border. It's very tricky to deal with this,
>if the <textarea> needs to preserve its default border.
>
>> Any suggestions? The first element must look like a
>> <pre> and accept input.
>
>By default, a <textarea> does not quite look like a <pre>, since
><textarea> has default border. Besides, on some browsers, a <textarea>
>has vertical scrollbar by default.

But "like" means "like"; it does not mean "exactly like". The likeness
needs to be sufficient to tempt users to enter their own text there. A
vertical scrollbar is required where needed, otherwise permissible.

>> The actual page is currently (6.5kB)
>> <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.
>
>The server currently responds "Service unavailable" (response code 500
>Internal Error).

Yes, it was bad for about two days, apart from FTP upload. I do not
normally read my own site from the server.

--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.

[Dr J R Stockton]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <dorayme-CBA84E.114502251
12...@news.albasani.net>, Sun, 25 Nov 2012 11:45:02, dorayme
<dor...@optusnet.com.au> posted:

>In article <MR21vfBb...@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid>,
> Dr J R Stockton <repl...@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>
>> In essence, I have, with both columns sized to 50% in an earlier row,
>>
>> <tr>
>> <th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>
>> <td style="border:1px solid black;">XYZ</td>
>> </tr>
>>
>> and, purely on aesthetic grounds, I would line the vertical positioning
>> of the tops and bottoms of the two visible boxes to align perfectly in
>> all browsers. Any suggestions? The first element must look like a
>> <pre> and accept input.
>>
>> The actual page is currently (6.5kB)
>> <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.
>
><th (is there a very good argument against simply td here?)

Probably not any more. At an earlier stage it centred the textarea,
which was then better.

The solution is to border the two table cells equally, and to unborder
the textarea, and to make the th background white. The difference
between the apparent textarea and a natural one is then visually
insignificant.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. For Mail, see Home Page. Turnpike, WinXP.
Web <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQ-type topics, acronyms, and links.
Command-prompt MiniTrue is useful for viewing/searching/altering files. Free,
DOS/Win/UNIX now 2.0.6; see <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/pc-links.htm>.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

2012-11-26 22:06, Dr J R Stockton wrote:

>>> <th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>

[...]

>> The <textarea> markup is invalid, but I presume that you intentionally
>> want to use each browser's default value for the cols attribute (which
>> is what happens in practice).
>
> The <textarea> markup is valid

It is not. You decided to override my setting of the newsgroup for
followups, bringing c.i.w.a.html into the picture again, for no good
reason. But since you did that and since you made an incorrect claim,
let me quote the validator's error message:

required attribute "COLS" not specified

and refer to the specification:

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/forms.html#edef-TEXTAREA

> The above code is the essence; you should
> have waited on seeing the real page before picking unreal nits. There
> is also for example cols=1, and some style.

You are apparently trying to say that the markup on your page is valid
and that you decided to post only the "essence", omitting one, and only
one, of the required attributes.

Omission of a required attribute is surely relevant to rendering, too,
in this case, as I explained.

> But "like" means "like"; it does not mean "exactly like". The likeness
> needs to be sufficient to tempt users to enter their own text there.

That's a very subjective issue, and it was not mentioned in your
original post.

The constructive way to make it clear where input is expected is to use
a label, with <label> markup. In this case, there is a natural place for
the label above the cell.

I spent some time in solving your problem. You don't seem to be
interested in the solution I provided (you did not refer to it at all),
just nitpicking on my remarks (and calling me a nitpicker).

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Jukka K. Korpela]

2012-11-26 22:06, Dr J R Stockton wrote:

>>> <th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>

[...]

>> The <textarea> markup is invalid, but I presume that you intentionally
>> want to use each browser's default value for the cols attribute (which
>> is what happens in practice).
>

> The <textarea> markup is valid

It is not. You decided to override my setting of the newsgroup for
followups, bringing c.i.w.a.html into the picture again, for no good
reason. But since you did that and since you made an incorrect claim,
let me quote the validator's error message:

required attribute "COLS" not specified

and refer to the specification:

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/forms.html#edef-TEXTAREA

> The above code is the essence; you should
> have waited on seeing the real page before picking unreal nits. There
> is also for example cols=1, and some style.

You are apparently trying to say that the markup on your page is valid
and that you decided to post only the "essence", omitting one, and only
one, of the required attributes.

Omission of a required attribute is surely relevant to rendering, too,
in this case, as I explained.

> But "like" means "like"; it does not mean "exactly like". The likeness
> needs to be sufficient to tempt users to enter their own text there.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

2012-11-26 22:06, Dr J R Stockton wrote:

>>> <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.
[...]

> The solution is to border the two table cells equally, and to unborder
> the textarea, and to make the th background white.

You probably haven't tested what happens when the user resizes the
textarea, on a browser that lets the user do so. It goes well when
enlargening the area, but not that well when making it narrower. Most
tricks have some drawback.

> The difference
> between the apparent textarea and a natural one is then visually
> insignificant.

Maybe, maybe not. People who use a browser that has a scrollbar in all
textareas might not see it that way.

F'ups trimmed.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[tlvp]

On Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:06:29 +0000, Dr J R Stockton wrote:

> But "like" means "like"; it does not mean "exactly like".

Forgive me, but to say " 'A' means 'A' " communicates nothing.
And to say " 'A' does not mean 'exactly A' " communicates very little about
what A actually is intended to mean. But all that may not be germane here.

[Dr J R Stockton]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <k91otn$5i2$2@dont-
email.me>, Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:08:40, Jukka K. Korpela
<jkor...@cs.tut.fi> posted:

>2012-11-26 22:06, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>
>>>> <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/$fish.htm>.
>[...]
>> The solution is to border the two table cells equally, and to unborder
>> the textarea, and to make the th background white.
>
>You probably haven't tested what happens when the user resizes the
>textarea, on a browser that lets the user do so. It goes well when
>enlargening the area, but not that well when making it narrower. Most
>tricks have some drawback.

I have so tested, and tested resizing the window too, and various
browsers. The results are acceptable; and I doubt whether many users
will want to alter the width anyway.

>> The difference
>> between the apparent textarea and a natural one is then visually
>> insignificant.
>
>Maybe, maybe not. People who use a browser that has a scrollbar in all
>textareas might not see it that way.

--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.

Proper <= 4-line sig. separator as above, a line exactly "-- " (SonOfRFC1036)
Do not Mail News to me. Before a reply, quote with ">" or "> " (SonOfRFC1036)

[Dr J R Stockton]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <k91oiq$5h0$1@dont-
email.me>, Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:02:49, Jukka K. Korpela
<jkor...@cs.tut.fi> posted:

>2012-11-26 22:06, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>
>>>> <th><textarea rows=10></textarea></th>
>[...]
>>> The <textarea> markup is invalid, but I presume that you intentionally
>>> want to use each browser's default value for the cols attribute (which
>>> is what happens in practice).
>>
>> The <textarea> markup is valid
>
>It is not. You decided to override my setting of the newsgroup for
>followups, bringing c.i.w.a.html into the picture again, for no good
>reason. But since you did that and since you made an incorrect claim,
>let me quote the validator's error message:
>
>required attribute "COLS" not specified

"the validator"? <http://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_input> did not
get round to saying that.

>and refer to the specification:
>
>http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/forms.html#edef-TEXTAREA
>
>> The above code is the essence; you should
>> have waited on seeing the real page before picking unreal nits. There
>> is also for example cols=1, and some style.
>
>You are apparently trying to say that the markup on your page is valid
>and that you decided to post only the "essence", omitting one, and only
>one, of the required attributes.

That is why I started off with "In essence, "; to indicate that the
following gives a general initial idea of the question.

>Omission of a required attribute is surely relevant to rendering, too,
>in this case, as I explained.
>
>> But "like" means "like"; it does not mean "exactly like". The likeness
>> needs to be sufficient to tempt users to enter their own text there.
>
>That's a very subjective issue, and it was not mentioned in your
>original post.

I was writing for those who can read English, rather than for those who
can only write it.

>The constructive way to make it clear where input is expected is to use
>a label, with <label> markup. In this case, there is a natural place
>for the label above the cell.
>
>I spent some time in solving your problem. You don't seem to be
>interested in the solution I provided (you did not refer to it at all),
>just nitpicking on my remarks (and calling me a nitpicker).

It was unduly complex. I found a different response to be more useful.


The page is no longer $fish.htm, but now test-jax.htm; the previous
test-jax is now demo-jax.

--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.

[Gus Richter]

On 11/27/2012 2:02 AM, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> I spent some time in solving your problem. You don't seem to be
> interested in the solution I provided (you did not refer to it at all),
> just nitpicking on my remarks (and calling me a nitpicker).

Don't feel alone. My submission was also not acknowledged. This has
happened before, so from now on I will not subject him to any more noise
from me.

--
Gus

[Dr J R Stockton]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <orcnsm1jrufd$.et10dathr3
gg....@40tude.net>, Tue, 27 Nov 2012 22:36:55, tlvp
<mPiOsUcB...@att.net> posted:

>On Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:06:29 +0000, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>
>> But "like" means "like"; it does not mean "exactly like".
>
>Forgive me, but to say " 'A' means 'A' " communicates nothing.
>And to say " 'A' does not mean 'exactly A' " communicates very little about
>what A actually is intended to mean. But all that may not be germane here.

It is, I think, an English idiom, used in England. A different one may
be used in other countries (such as Scotland) that call their language
English.

--

[David Stone]

In article <GrRXReDC...@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid>,

Dr J R Stockton <repl...@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:

> In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <orcnsm1jrufd$.et10dathr3
> gg....@40tude.net>, Tue, 27 Nov 2012 22:36:55, tlvp
> <mPiOsUcB...@att.net> posted:
>
> >On Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:06:29 +0000, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
> >
> >> But "like" means "like"; it does not mean "exactly like".
> >
> >Forgive me, but to say " 'A' means 'A' " communicates nothing.
> >And to say " 'A' does not mean 'exactly A' " communicates very little about
> >what A actually is intended to mean. But all that may not be germane here.
>
> It is, I think, an English idiom, used in England. A different one may
> be used in other countries (such as Scotland) that call their language
> English.

Typical usage -
"One of these things is not like the others: cat dog horse fish mouse"

Does that make it clear?

[tlvp]

Equally true: Each one of those things is not like the others. Doesn't help
explain what any of them *is* like, however, which was my point. Still,

"all that may not be germane here."

[David Stone]

In article <ae4n1loeb40j$.1khbhfnvzlxth$.d...@40tude.net>,

tlvp <mPiOsUcB...@att.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:41:09 -0500, David Stone wrote:
>
> > In article <GrRXReDC...@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid>,
> > Dr J R Stockton <repl...@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <orcnsm1jrufd$.et10dathr3
> >> gg....@40tude.net>, Tue, 27 Nov 2012 22:36:55, tlvp
> >> <mPiOsUcB...@att.net> posted:
> >>
> >>>On Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:06:29 +0000, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> But "like" means "like"; it does not mean "exactly like".
> >>>
> >>>Forgive me, but to say " 'A' means 'A' " communicates nothing.
> >>>And to say " 'A' does not mean 'exactly A' " communicates very little about
> >>>what A actually is intended to mean. But all that may not be germane here.
> >>
> >> It is, I think, an English idiom, used in England. A different one may
> >> be used in other countries (such as Scotland) that call their language
> >> English.
> >
> > Typical usage -
> > "One of these things is not like the others: cat dog horse fish mouse"
> >
> > Does that make it clear?
>
> Equally true: Each one of those things is not like the others.

Except they are: four of them are mammals with four legs, warm blood,
lungs, etc. The fifth is obviously quite _unlike_ the others as it is
not a mammal and has gills.

> Doesn't help
> explain what any of them *is* like, however, which was my point.

That, as always, is left as an exercise for the reader! The point
is, the English use "like" to mean various shades of equivalency,
and may or may not add qualifiers (since the qualifiers can usually
be inferred from context).

[tlvp]

On Mon, 03 Dec 2012 09:45:01 -0500, David Stone wrote:

> In article <ae4n1loeb40j$.1khbhfnvzlxth$.d...@40tude.net>,
> tlvp <mPiOsUcB...@att.net> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:41:09 -0500, David Stone wrote:
>>
>>> In article <GrRXReDC...@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid>,
>>> Dr J R Stockton <repl...@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <orcnsm1jrufd$.et10dathr3
>>>> gg....@40tude.net>, Tue, 27 Nov 2012 22:36:55, tlvp
>>>> <mPiOsUcB...@att.net> posted:
>>>>
>>>>>On Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:06:29 +0000, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> But "like" means "like"; it does not mean "exactly like".
>>>>>
>>>>>Forgive me, but to say " 'A' means 'A' " communicates nothing.
>>>>>And to say " 'A' does not mean 'exactly A' " communicates very little about
>>>>>what A actually is intended to mean. But all that may not be germane here.
>>>>
>>>> It is, I think, an English idiom, used in England. A different one may
>>>> be used in other countries (such as Scotland) that call their language
>>>> English.
>>>
>>> Typical usage -
>>> "One of these things is not like the others: cat dog horse fish mouse"
>>>
>>> Does that make it clear?
>>
>> Equally true: Each one of those things is not like the others.
>
> Except they are: four of them are mammals with four legs, warm blood,
> lungs, etc. The fifth is obviously quite _unlike_ the others as it is
> not a mammal and has gills.

Right: the fish differs from the rest in being piscine.
Likewise, the cat differs from the rest in being feline,
the dog in being canine, the horse in being equine,
and the mouse in being ... umm ... muscular :-) . So?

>> Doesn't help
>> explain what any of them *is* like, however, which was my point.
>
> That, as always, is left as an exercise for the reader!

Then let's not pretend that there's anything of informational value in a
statement like "a fish is not like a cat."

> The point
> is, the English use "like" to mean various shades of equivalency,
> and may or may not add qualifiers (since the qualifiers can usually
> be inferred from context).

(Sigh!) I like give up. Enjoy your 'victory'. Cheers, -- tlvp