Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 11:29:17 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org>, Unhappy Adobe Customer <bsd_appliance@yahoo.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SSSCA? Message-ID: <3BC4937D.5FB32720@mindspring.com> References: <20011008193423.77229.qmail@web11901.mail.yahoo.com> <3BC34784.4D56D9DF@mindspring.com> <xzplmikcop2.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <3BC404A6.89276494@mindspring.com> <xzphet7dgra.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <3BC410E4.ACF8074B@mindspring.com> <20011010113341.G57921@lpt.ens.fr> <3BC48B9F.F385BFC7@mindspring.com> <20011010195728.E83192@lpt.ens.fr>
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Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
> Your point being? Do you claim that "post" is modified to "pos"?
> And in that case, since "post" means "after" or "behind", exactly
> why should "i pos facto" mean "before the fact"?
"Behind".
As I said elsewhere, colloquial legal usage doesn't really
match a literal translation. Literal translations are
useless for this, which is what I was trying to point out
to DES.
This is also true of lots of English words and phrases,
when it comes to common usage.
For example "That's a moot point" is a phrase often used
to dismiss further argument, but in fact, it means that
the point is subject to discussion.
I remember a dicussion I had once, with someone over the
compound word "cyberspace". They insisted that it applied
to things like "MUD" and "IRC", etc.. I said "Let's ask
that guy over there?"; they said "Why?", and I said "He's
William Gibson, and he invented the word".
"It's not cyberspace until you can torture someone to
death there, and they die in the real world as a result".
Didn't stop them misuing it, though... it was "cool" to
apply it to what they were doing, since it lent an air of
"cool" to their own "nerd-dom", and they wanted to appear
"cool" ("31337" for you kiddies out there).
-- Terry
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