Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 11:19:11 +0200 From: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr>, Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/alpha/alpha clock.c Message-ID: <p05111703b90fc048bd8f@[10.0.1.4]> In-Reply-To: <20020521103710.C71209@lpt.ens.fr> References: <200205162121.g4GLLGQ43405@freefall.freebsd.org> <20020516220511.A9DBE380A@overcee.wemm.org> <20020517114010.A57127@regency.nsu.ru> <20020519100324.GK44562@daemon.ninth-circle.org> <20020519134348.I67779@blossom.cjclark.org> <p05111722b90de01cc974@[10.9.8.215]> <20020520195703.A79046@dragon.nuxi.com> <p05111701b90fb2744154@[10.9.8.215]> <20020521103710.C71209@lpt.ens.fr>
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At 10:37 AM +0200 2002/05/21, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
> Dictionaries follow usage of new terminology, they don't dictate them.
For most English-language dictionaries, this is true.
> The second edition was first published in 1989, while the first
> edition was published in full in 1933, with some supplements in
> intervening years; in effect, if you insisted on the OED's stamp of
> authority, you could not have used a lot of new technological words
> for over 50 years after 1933.
The OED is being updated much more frequently these days, but is
still recognized as being the most authoritative source of
information on the usage of the English language. That's why I used
it as my reference for this discussion.
> Even in France, there is an attempt to get people to use
> "mel" (for "message electronique") or "courriel" (for "courrier
> electronique") but most people use the English-sounding "email".
What does La Academie Française have to say about this? I'm sure
that they could invent some French-sounding word that would have the
official power of law, and could bully most people in the country
into complying. This is why I say that the French language is the
only dead language still in common use today -- because languages
that are alive will mutate and grow in a natural manner, unlike
French.
> As for the original dispute about "filesystem" v/s "file system": when
> I look around my desk, I see a desktop, a lampshade, a doorway, a
> bookshelf, a trashcan, a cupboard (which does not store cups), a
> blackboard (which is not black), among other things. All of these
> started life as two words, and got combined into one word with a
> specific meaning.
Right, but it took a long time for those words to come into their
current form -- something like fifty years or more. There simply
hasn't been enough time for the word "filesystem" to have gone
through this same process.
However, for my part, the use of the word "filesystem" is correct
and appropriate, and does not depend on this matter of compound words
becoming synthesized over the years into a single word.
--
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be>
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.
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