[geeks] KDE "konsole" cluebat?

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 @ 14:34 -0700, Nadine said:

> But calling such shifts "sloppy" just because they might disregard
> formal rules is short-sighted in my mind.  Old school grammarians are
> just that--old.  

Exactly.

It is also worth noting that English is officially changing to deprecate
things like "as *" in favor of like, and other similar situations.

The reason is because English is rough flowing and inconsistent, and the
changes are designed to try and fix some of that.

The other part is that English is like a cramped djini... out of the
bottle, and doesn't want to be put back in.

That's why I say all references are descriptive by nature. In fact,
changes are needed before you can truly have an authoritative reference,
because right now accepted references are in disagreement.

You can see the same thing in computer languages.

Bourne Shell is a lot like English. It wasn't created with a set of
rules in mind, it just kind of happened. It's partially syncretic as
well.

That's why it is so hard to write a bourne compatible shell: you have no
exact reference.  

The Korn Shell is the only shell that has a formal definition, but
resistance, quite a lot of it from shell pedants, has kept it from being
fully accepted as the standard UNIX shell.

The other big issue is licensing, which is silly.

> Language evolves faster than many are willing to accept. Nothing wrong
> with their usuage, but they are unrealistic at best if they think the
> rest of the world's is going to allow language to be set in stone.
> We'd all be speaking something older than Sumerian if that was the
> case.

Well, the French seem to try... :)

The thing with a language is that it needs to be formalized fairly
early, so that change can be done in sane fashion.

English authorities were very late to begin a rational formalization of
the language, and its particular evolution makes it very hard.


-- 
shannon /     Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst 
-------'      his books For to you kingdoms and their armies are
              mighty and enduring,  but to him they are but toys of
              the moment to be overturned by the flicking of a finger.