Nonce

On Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 01:45:05AM +0900, Trans wrote:

It really amazes me. I wonder in what region you reside. I have lived
all over the United States: Mayland, North Carolina, Florida, Texas,
New Mexico, Chicago, and among all variety of income and education
levels, and I have never once heard the phrase. So it really surprises
me that out of wood work of this mailing we find so many people that
use it all the time. Is this some sort of cosmic Rubyist connection?

I’ve lived in Minnesota, Montana, California, Hawaii, Florida, Colorado,
and Italy, and have visited a fair number of other places as well. I
don’t think I’ve forgotten any of the places I’ve lived, and am not
about to even try to list the places I’ve visited. In all that time,
I’ve heard two other people use the term “nonce” in casual
conversation, and used it a fair bit myself. It’s not common, but it
does happen – and I’ve never had to explain to someone what the word
meant. Frankly, this is the first time it has ever occurred to me that
I might say it to someone that doesn’t know what it means.

Hi –

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006, Bill K. wrote:

Strafe.
What is “English” anyway? Most of our words came from some other
langauage. Would you be suggesting only anglo-saxon derived words
are appropriate for Ruby? :slight_smile:

I’m suggesting that “eigenclass” sounds affected and a little silly to
me, and out of place in Ruby.

David

On 8/11/06, Simen E. [email protected] wrote:

On 8/11/06, [email protected] [email protected] wrote:

In any case, if it were really German, wouldn’t it be ‘Eigenklasse’?
:slight_smile:

I think we should compromise and use “singleton Klasse” :slight_smile:

We really should have a Japanese name for it. What’s Japanese for
“Singleton class” :wink: ?

See my earlier email…I kinda like “ichiclass”. It’s like “itchy
class”,
scratching that itch for some additional feature you must have in this
object.

Chad P. wrote:

I’ve lived in Minnesota, Montana, California, Hawaii, Florida, Colorado,
and Italy, and have visited a fair number of other places as well. I
don’t think I’ve forgotten any of the places I’ve lived, and am not
about to even try to list the places I’ve visited. In all that time,
I’ve heard two other people use the term “nonce” in casual
conversation, and used it a fair bit myself. It’s not common, but it
does happen – and I’ve never had to explain to someone what the word
meant. Frankly, this is the first time it has ever occurred to me that
I might say it to someone that doesn’t know what it means.

Fascinating. So you were actaully born with a priori knowledge of the
word nonce.

T.

[email protected] writes:

Zeitgeist.
Kindergarten.

What is “English” anyway? Most of our words came from some other
langauage. Would you be suggesting only anglo-saxon derived words
are appropriate for Ruby? :slight_smile:

I’m suggesting that “eigenclass” sounds affected and a little silly to
me, and out of place in Ruby.

Überclass!

Trans wrote:

Fascinating. So you were actaully born with a priori knowledge of the
word nonce.

Oops. That’s with a :wink:

T.

On Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 03:15:10AM +0900, Trans wrote:

I might say it to someone that doesn’t know what it means.

Fascinating. So you were actaully born with a priori knowledge of the
word nonce.

Of course not. The first time I ran across it was in print. I think I
was six at the time.

James B. wrote:

Christian N. wrote:

Überclass!

Well, with a little effort, we can have Rüby, and then Eigenklasse may
fit better.

Rüby == Ruby 2.0 :wink:

Christian N. wrote:

Überclass!

Well, with a little effort, we can have Rüby, and then Eigenklasse may
fit better.


James B.

“If you don’t write it down, it never happened.”

  • (Unknown to me)

On 8/11/06, Charles O Nutter [email protected] wrote:

If memory serves, these would be pronounced something like “Urberclass”
and
“Rurby”, no? I’d vote to stay away from changes that alter pronunciation
:slight_smile:

Actually I’m thinking of the umlauted o; the umlauted u sounds more like
“ue”…so we’d have “ueberclass” and “rueby”…which sound a bit weird.
Let’s not fall into the Mötley Crüe trap, shall we?

On 8/11/06, Trans [email protected] wrote:

Rüby == Ruby 2.0 :wink:

If memory serves, these would be pronounced something like “Urberclass”
and
“Rurby”, no? I’d vote to stay away from changes that alter pronunciation
:slight_smile:

Paul B. wrote:

‘Eigen’ is indeed German, but I’ve always seen the word as patterned
after the mathematical term ‘eigenvector’, which is used in English.

I was thinking eigenvalue, but same principle.

In any case, if it were really German, wouldn’t it be ‘Eigenklasse’? :slight_smile:

Good point. :slight_smile: Is it Vector or Vektor in German? As for “Value” – I
think that’s a good German word. Not sure.

Hal

Paul B. wrote:

On 11/08/06, Matt L. [email protected] wrote:

And, yes, I use nonce on occasion. I read a lot of British fiction.

Are you aware of its meaning, though?

Urban Dictionary: Nonce

LOL… I’d bet that the books Matt reads don’t use
that kind of slang in general.

And yes, I do have some idea of what Matt reads. :wink:

I wonder if I might have originally learned it from
Doyle, Verne, and Wells? I know I didn’t read any
Shakespeare until 9th grade or so. And I have a
feeling “nonce” was lying around in my mind long
before I had a chance to use it in conversation.

Hal

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

  1. The term “eigenvector” has only become a de facto standard in English
    fairly recently. A great deal of theoretical math done by French and
    Russian mathematicians used non-German terminology for a somewhat
    obvious reason before the two World Wars. When this mathematics was
    translated into English, the term “proper vector” was heavily used, as
    well as some others. Other instances of this phenomenon are the
    Cauchy-Schwartz-Bunyakovsky inequality and the Gauss-Legendre least
    squares algorithm. :slight_smile:

Holy Wronskian, Batman. I haven’t heard those terms since I was 20.

  1. What’s an “eigen-nonce”?

Your own personal pedophile?

Hal

Hal F. wrote:

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

  1. What’s an “eigen-nonce”?

Your own personal pedophile?

All the cool kids have one.

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006, Hal F. wrote:

LOL… I’d bet that the books Matt reads don’t use
that kind of slang in general.

And yes, I do have some idea of what Matt reads. :wink:

I wonder if I might have originally learned it from
Doyle, Verne, and Wells? I know I didn’t read any
Shakespeare until 9th grade or so. And I have a
feeling “nonce” was lying around in my mind long
before I had a chance to use it in conversation.

I was thinking more of Terry Pratchett…

– Matt
It’s not what I know that counts.
It’s what I can remember in time to use.

[email protected] wrote:

Hi,

At Sat, 12 Aug 2006 02:50:30 +0900,
Simen E. wrote in [ruby-talk:207829]:

We really should have a Japanese name for it. What’s Japanese for
“Singleton class” :wink: ?

Tokui (singular, peculiar, unique) Kurasu (class).

Tokui. Hmm… kind reminds me of Token.

T.

Hal F. wrote:

Good point. :slight_smile: Is it Vector or Vektor in German? As for “Value” – I
think that’s a good German word. Not sure.
Speaking of German, there’s an apocryphal tale about an American
visiting a German friend who was a chemistry professor. The professor
was taking him on a tour of the lab, and the American remarked, “German
universities seem to have lots of benefactors, unlike the ones where I
live.” The professor asked, “Why do you say that?” And the American
replied, “Look at all the bottles on the shelf – most of them are
marked ‘Gift’.”

Hi,

At Sat, 12 Aug 2006 02:50:30 +0900,
Simen E. wrote in [ruby-talk:207829]:

We really should have a Japanese name for it. What’s Japanese for
“Singleton class” :wink: ?

Tokui (singular, peculiar, unique) Kurasu (class).

Sometimes Tokui is written as “strong point” wrongly. :wink:

fr Paul:

fr botp:

> fr Paul

> # Urban Dictionary: Nonce

>

>

Nonce - definition of Nonce - synonyms, pronunciation, spelling from Free Dictionary*

&strategy=exact

>

I just wanted to bring attention to the British slang meaning before

anyone had the bright idea of naming anything in Ruby a ‘nonce’!

yes, and i forgot my smiley too :slight_smile:
in any case, just about anything can be slanged

kind regards -botp :slight_smile: