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.
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?
I’m suggesting that “eigenclass” sounds affected and a little silly to
me, and out of place in Ruby.
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.
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?
I’m suggesting that “eigenclass” sounds affected and a little silly to
me, and out of place in Ruby.
If memory serves, these would be pronounced something like “Urberclass”
and
“Rurby”, no? I’d vote to stay away from changes that alter pronunciation
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?
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.
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.
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.
Holy Wronskian, Batman. I haven’t heard those terms since I was 20.
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.
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.
Good point. 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’.”