ANSI C syntax ?

[Joe Wright]

Default User said:


Neither is there a country called "America". And your point?


Not so. Rather, the term "American" was hijacked for self-description by
a group that constitutes less than a third of the population of the two
American continents. The term "Usanian" is merely an attempt to
facilitate an un-hijacking of that term. If anything is insulting to
Americans, it is the suggestion that the majority of them don't count
as American, simply because they are not from the United States.

I think not. United States of America is over two hundred years old and
its citizens have been known as Americans since then. There is no
confusion on this side of the water about that. Canadian and Mexican
people while sharing the North American continent with us do not
describe themselves as American, rather as Canadian and Mexican.

And you know that perfectly well. You lost the battle at Yorktown. Get
over it.

Some of us (Americans) are proud of our heritage. This year marks the
400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent
English settlement in the New World.

 

[Joe Wright]

Malcolm McLean wrote:
... snip ...

On the contrary, around here designating somewon as a Yankee is a
compliment. The point is that it is regional. Something like
calling all UKanians "Cockneys".

I'm told, in Mexico, yanqui is anyone north of the Rio Grande. In Texas
a yankee is anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line. In New York a yankee
is anyone from New England. In New England a yankee is from Maine and
eats Blueberry pie for breakfast.

 

[Default User]

Speaking as an American, it doesn't bother me at all.

Sure, and that's great. I've just grown tired of it.

This is entirely off-topic, and it's vanishingly unlikely that
anything is going to be resolved here. I suggest that both sides of
this debate quietly declare victory and move on.

As I said, I'm coming out and declaring, "I am an American". If people
use what I consider to be insulting terms for me and my countrymen on
this group, they're going to have to deal a fight over each time.

Whether they care or not is up to them.




Brian

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Joe Wright said:

Richard Heathfield wrote:

I think not.

That is your privilege, but I still disagree with you.

You lost the battle at Yorktown.

No, I didn't. I wasn't even present. In fact, I wasn't even born.

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Default User said:

As I said, I'm coming out and declaring, "I am an American".

As far as I can tell, nobody has suggested otherwise.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Sure, and that's great. I've just grown tired of it.



As I said, I'm coming out and declaring, "I am an American". If people
use what I consider to be insulting terms for me and my countrymen on
this group, they're going to have to deal a fight over each time.

Whether they care or not is up to them.

I just don't understand why you find "USAnian" to be insulting.
Silly, sure, but the country of which we're both proud to be citizens
is called, among other things, the "USA". (It's also referred to as
the US, The States, and a number of other things.)

Nobody objects to your calling yourself an American. I just think
you're seeing an insult where none was intended or can be reasonably
inferred. The term was used in passing in a discussion of the ANSI
and ISO C standard(s); seizing on it and starting an utterly off-topic
debate is less than constructive. (And I'm not helping by
participating in it.)

 

[J. J. Farrell]

ANSI C is referred to C89.

By you, perhaps, but wrongly.

In 1989 ANSI published the first C standard.
In 1990 ISO adopt this C89 as ISO 9899:1990, so called C90

And in 1990 ANSI adopted ISO C90 as the replacement ANSI C Standard.

In 1999 ISO published the ISO 9899:1999, so called C99

And in 1999 ANSI adopted ISO C99 as the replacement ANSI C Standard.

ANSI only published C89 and C99 is ISO C.

No, ANSI has Standardized and published all the C Standards.

When reffered to ANSI C we always refer to C89 or equivalent, C90.

Strictly, "ANSI C" now means C99. Colloquially it means any of the
ANSI C Standards from C89 to C99.

For instance, in GCC, -ansi is the same as -std=c89 option.

For historical reasons, dating from when C89 was the ANSI C Standard.

 

[Old Wolf]

Did you ask these people if they are Americans and if they find it
insulting when someone calls them Americans?

Anyway, I am not an American nor a Great-Britaininan, so I guess I
miss very important details about this argument.

Does it bother Kazakhs, Latvians, Uzbeks, Chechens, etc.
to be called Russian?

 

[Nelu]

Does it bother Kazakhs, Latvians, Uzbeks, Chechens, etc.
to be called Russian?

<OT>
Are they Russians? Even better, is there a continent named Rusia?
Better yet, do the North Russia and South Russia exist? People
from Canada are Canadians, people from the United States of
America are Americans, people from Brasil are Brasilians (there
was a relatively funny joke about Bush and brazillion ).
Everyone in my country (Romania) was referring to people from the
US as Americans and everybody else did until recently. Although
they are the only Americans. Brazilians are South Americans,
Canadians are North Americans. United States of America does not
make any reference to North and South. I am not an American and
have not much of an interest in this discussion but America is
usually associated with the US not the land mass of the
"Americas". Can someone enlighten me who invented USAnians and
when because almost every time I heard USAnians as opposed to
Americans it was done in a derogatory fashion. Still baffled by
the fact that you don't yet hear "death to USAnians!".
</OT>

 

[Default User]

of >> this debate quietly declare victory and move on.

I just don't understand why you find "USAnian" to be insulting.
Silly, sure, but the country of which we're both proud to be citizens
is called, among other things, the "USA". (It's also referred to as
the US, The States, and a number of other things.)

It's because of the attitude, expressed here, "you've stolen the name
American and kept other legitmate users from it, so you get it."

It's a load of crap. These guys aren't bleeding for the people in Peru
or Canada that are deprived of being called "American". They want to
stick it to us. I'm tired of it.

If they just so PC that they can't bear to use the term in its
traditional and most widespread fashion, then perhaps they'd be better
off rewording the sentences to avoid either term.




Brian

 

[Mark McIntyre]

Provide some evidence of such use. I'll bet you have one hell of a hard
time. It's an insult to Americans to rob us of our correct name.

Personally, I think its presumptuous of folk from the USA to refer to
themselves as Americans, as though somehow all the other people living
in North and South America aren't also Americans.

However, since Yanks normally think Scotland is in England, and
Edinburgh rhymes with yurg, and Sinclair is pronounced Saint Clare, I
guess I can live with the other crimes against linguistics....
--
Mark McIntyre

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan

 

[Mark McIntyre]

And you know that perfectly well. You lost the battle at Yorktown.

Rubbish, the away team took too long to take the field and the umpires
declared the game forfeit. Boo hiss.

Get over it.

What, the Hudson? Wasn't that part of the problem?

Some of us (Americans) are proud of our heritage. This year marks the
400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent
English settlement in the New World.

Founded by a Scottish king...

gd&r
--
Mark McIntyre

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan

 

[Mark McIntyre]

Many Americans consider it HIGHLY insulting to use such neologisms in
place of the proper name.

Then many of your countrymen have far too high a sense of
self-importance. There's a fine line between patriotism and jingoism.

In similar vein it ticks me off when Yanks refer to me as English, or
refer to my capital city as either Edin-burgh, Edin-borrow or worst of
all, London. But I'm hardly going to start throwing my toys out of the
pram over it.
--
Mark McIntyre

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Default User said:

Keith Thompson wrote:

(I don't get that either. I've seen the British described by Usanians as
"Ukian", which is surely less euphonious and thus more likely to be
considered insulting, and yet I do not feel insulted by it.)

It's because of the attitude, expressed here, "you've stolen the name
American and kept other legitmate users from it, so you get it."

Hey, "stolen" is a bit strong. It's just a misused word, that's all.
Lots of words get misused for all kinds of reasons.

It's a load of crap. These guys aren't bleeding for the people in Peru
or Canada that are deprived of being called "American". They want to
stick it to us.

That may be true of some users of the term "Usanian", but I can't speak
for them either way. What I can say, however, is that it is not true of
me. I merely prefer to use words in a precise way where possible.
That's a good thing, right?

 

[J. J. Farrell]

It's because of the attitude, expressed here, "you've stolen the name
American and kept other legitmate users from it, so you get it."

It's a load of crap. These guys aren't bleeding for the people in Peru
or Canada that are deprived of being called "American". They want to
stick it to us. I'm tired of it.

You're giving the impression of having a big chip of some sort on your
shoulder, and you're making unwarranted assumptions about people's
reasons for their actions. Some people just wish to precise; others
wish to avoid giving offence to those residents of the Americas who
are offended by the way some USA citizens claim the word "American"
applies solely to them.

If they just so PC that they can't bear to use the term in its
traditional and most widespread fashion, then perhaps they'd be better
off rewording the sentences to avoid either term.

Avoiding the terms might be best, though from your logic I'd expect
you to take offence at someone avoiding the word "American" when
referring to citizens of the USA. Avoiding taking offence where none
is intended would be another way to solve the problem.

The word "American" is ambiguous. The term "USAian" is an extremely
ugly neologism, but has the advantage of not being ambiguous. There
are similar problems referring to citizens of the UK. The term
"British" does not technically include the people of Northern Ireland;
some of them will be highly offended if you suggest it does, others
will be highly offended if you point out that it doesn't. There is no
single-word term to represent citizens of the UK other than the
nelogism "UKians". I dislike this term because it's ugly, but I
certainly don't find it offensive. It's an attempt to be precise in
short form - it's not a term I'd use myself, but I've no problem with
it other than aesthetics.

 

[Yevgen Muntyan]

Does it bother Kazakhs, Latvians, Uzbeks, Chechens, etc.
to be called Russian?

But who plays role of non-Russians called Russians here? If folks
from India were offended because they are called English, your
analogy would be good, but here it seems to be a different issue.

Yevgen

 

[Ernie Wright]

Default User said:

Hey, "stolen" is a bit strong. It's just a misused word, that's all.
Lots of words get misused for all kinds of reasons.


That may be true of some users of the term "Usanian", but I can't
speak for them either way. What I can say, however, is that it is not
true of me. I merely prefer to use words in a precise way where
possible. That's a good thing, right?

Well, then maybe you can explain the difference between "stolen" and
"hijacked."

In other contexts, in newsgroups where the participants are both
sufficiently self-aware and humor-enabled, I'm not at all offended by
neologisms like Usanian or LeftPondian. Used correctly, they are a
cheerful acknowledgement of the international nature of newsgroup
discussion.

It only starts to bother me when their use is justified by arrogant,
transparently disingenuous and logically flawed rationalizations.

Maybe you're not even aware of what it sounds like when you claim that
300 million people are calling themselves the wrong thing, and that you
know better than they do what they should rightly be called.

But I doubt it.

You even admit that "some users of the term" use it polemically. Surely
it would be *logical* to discourage polemics here, if only to avoid
threads like this one.

Yet you prefer to stand behind the patently risible assertion that
"American" is ambiguous, even if this damages your credibility. The
truth is that it means something you wish it didn't. Groups where it's
appropriate to discuss the parochialism of Usanians and the reform of
the English language are -----> thataway.

- Ernie http://home.comcast.net/~erniew

 

[Default User]

Mark McIntyre wrote:

Personally, I think its presumptuous of folk from the USA to refer to
themselves as Americans, as though somehow all the other people living
in North and South America aren't also Americans.

There is one and only one nation on Earth with America in its name.
Guess which citizens RIGHTFULLY use the NATIONAL identity American.

You've now been told that at least some of your American colleagues and
fellow group members find your use of that neologism offensive. It's
now up to you what you do from this point.




Brian

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Ernie Wright said:

Well, then maybe you can explain the difference between "stolen" and
"hijacked."

I think the right expression here is "it's a fair cop, guv!".

Maybe you're not even aware of what it sounds like when you claim that
300 million people are calling themselves the wrong thing, and that
you know better than they do what they should rightly be called.

Knowing better than 300 million people is not a new experience for
comp.lang.c regulars, believe me. Would that it were otherwise!

 

[Richard Bos]

^^^^^^^

The above is not a word. The term you're searching for is "American".

No; an American is someone from Canada, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, or
even, horrors of horrors, Cuba. Or, yes, from the USA.

Richard