[OT] "its" vs. "it's"

[Wildemar Wildenburger]

I find it even more irritating if the plural is constructed using an
apostrophe, like e.g. "a lot of table's" or "the BLOB's are stored in.."

I find that this is mostly done by Germans, as (I suppose) they are used
to adding "'s" to a word in order to from the genitive.

/W

 

[Joe Attardi]

In English, the word "its" is the third-person singular neutral genitive. The
word "it's" is a contraction for "it is".

OH MY GOD!

Thanks Lew for showing me that I am not the only one who is annoyed by
this. I'm surrounded by overpaid "senior developers" who can't grasp a
simple concept like "it's" vs. "its" and the other related ones.
"Loose" vs. "Lose" is another one that makes me crazy.

Granted we weren't English majors, but a basic grasp of the language
is necessary in any profession.

 

[Wojtek]

Bent C Dalager wrote :

I know of NO language that allows punctuation within variable names or
key words.

OpenOffice Basic apparantly supports whitespace in variable names, if
you enclose the whole thing in square brackets:

Dim [i have whitespace] As Integer

You now have an integer variable called "i have whitespace".

Yikes! Shades of whitespacein OS file names.

Also, since Java supports Unicode symbol names, it may be possible to
find some valid Unicode symbols that at least /look like/ they are
punctuation

Oh great...

Then your code looks like compressed JavaScript, or Perl, or some other
non-maintainable mess

 

[Wojtek]

Joe Attardi wrote :

"Loose" vs. "Lose" is another one that makes me crazy.

Rotsky, is that you?

Um, somewhat (maybe) obscure reference to an incident on Fark ...

 

[Joe Attardi]

Rotsky, is that you?

Sorry, pet peeve.



/long time lurker on Fark, never have commented though

 

[Thomas Kellerer]

Wildemar Wildenburger wrote on 25.10.2007 17:19:

I find that this is mostly done by Germans, as (I suppose) they are used
to adding "'s" to a word in order to from the genitive.

Which is completely wrong in German as well. In German the ' may only be used to
mark characters that have been left out (similar to it's == it is)

Thomas

 

[Lew]

I can however stomach the word "nukular" in non-scientific contexts
relating to radioactivity (by a detour via the "verb" "to nuke"),
because there no conceptual connection to a nucleus is needed.

Other than the conceptual link to the atomic nuclei that are fissioning, of
course.

 

[Wildemar Wildenburger]

Other than the conceptual link to the atomic nuclei that are fissioning,
of course.

OK, again someone wasn't precise enough for his Lewness. I meant that
you can conceivably *abstact* from nuclei in that case, since when you
talk about an A-Bomb or a NPP blowing up and killing millions of people,
most folks will believe you without ever thinking of atomic nuclei.

And Lew, I know that you understood what I was getting at. You just
*needed* to pick nits, right?

/W

 

[Wildemar Wildenburger]

Wildemar Wildenburger wrote on 25.10.2007 17:19:

Which is completely wrong in German as well. In German the ' may only be
used to mark characters that have been left out (similar to it's == it is)

Boy is my face red.

Note to self: Think, check, then check again. Then post.

/W

 

[Joshua Cranmer]

I did, and it didn't.

The site provides several examples of programming code that make you
want to gouge your eyes out at times. I believe it is these examples of
crappy programming code to which Wojtek was referring.

 

[Joshua Cranmer]

Oh great...

Then your code looks like compressed JavaScript, or Perl, or some other
non-maintainable mess

Want a non-maintainable mess? Replace every character with its \uXXXX
equivalent (since Unicode escapes are the first things processed). Then
watch IDEs die on the input because they don't realize how early they're
processed.

For bonus points, use \uuXXXX

 

[Joshua Cranmer]

I always wondered a bit about all the people who seem to think that
saying "nukular" in public should be a hanging offense - are
"tolerance of dialects" and "respect for other people's culture"
purely Norwegian concepts?

Well, to a degree, it depends on the setting. Speaking in a slangy sort
of way or other generally poor accent would be inappropriate in a
high-class environment. It also depends on the strength of the accent
and the words: "nukular" is indisputably going to refer to "nuclear", so
there's no real danger of misunderstanding, whereas in French, "sous"
and "sus" ("under"/"over", for non-French speakers out there) sound very
similar and have antonyms as possible words that a strong accent can be
problematic. Since my pronunciation in French ranges from "blegh" to
mediocre, I tend to agree with the idea of tolerance of dialects.

While on the topic, I want to relate this story of my sister's French
teacher:

On back to school night, she heavily emphasized that it is important to
"learn to speak without an accent" because "it is very insulting to a
culture to speak with an accent." As you can guess, she was doing this
in a very thick accent. How thick? It took me five minutes to register
that she was speaking English and not French...

In general, my only umbrage with accents and dialects is when they
impede comprehension.

 

[Wojtek]

Joshua Cranmer wrote :

Want a non-maintainable mess? Replace every character with its \uXXXX
equivalent (since Unicode escapes are the first things processed). Then watch
IDEs die on the input because they don't realize how early they're processed.

For bonus points, use \uuXXXX

The worst was running C on an IBM main-frame. Because there are (were?)
no curly braces and other non-text characters you had to use tri-graph
sequences.

I ended up developing on a PC, then running ALL the code through a
filter which did the replacements. Oh yes, all variables and functions
were limited to non-case sensitive 8 characters, so that had to be
replaced also.

My head hurts just thinking about it ...

 

[Lew]

And Lew, I know that you understood what I was getting at. You just
*needed* to pick nits, right?

That's right.

Honestly, I get the biggest chuckle when you guys hold a mirror up in my face
and I see how ridiculous I look.

 

[Lew]

That's right.

Honestly, I get the biggest chuckle when you guys hold a mirror up in my
face and I see how ridiculous I look.

But the shoe is on the other foot. This time I was trying to be humorous by
pointing out the connection between radiation and nuclei.

 

[John W. Kennedy]

My English gripe is Americans claiming they speak English. The word realtor
doesn't exist in English.

It (sc. "Realtor" -- note capitalization) is a trademark for an
association of estate agents who at least claim to have higher ethical
standards than the common herd of estate agents. Since that association
has not crossed the ocean, it is not surprising that the word has not,
either.

But I confess that I was vaguely surprised that you did not jump on
"reel-tor"; only a few generations ago, "reel" for "real" was regarded
as vulgar in England.

 

[John W. Kennedy]

I always wondered a bit about all the people who seem to think that
saying "nukular" in public should be a hanging offense - are
"tolerance of dialects" and "respect for other people's culture"
purely Norwegian concepts?

Norway and Greece have unusual histories in that respect.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Give up vows and dogmas, and fixed things, and you may grow like That.
....you may come to think a blow bad, because it hurts, and not because
it humiliates. You may come to think murder wrong, because it is
violent, and not because it is unjust."
-- G. K. Chesterton. "The Ball and the Cross"

 

[Wojtek]

Wojtek wrote :

The worst was running C on an IBM main-frame. Because there are (were?) no
curly braces and other non-text characters you had to use tri-graph
sequences.

Ok, it was not curly braces, but rather [ ] ~ and ^. Forgive me, it was
back in 1990...

[ - ??(
] - ??)
~ - ??\
^ - ??-

So a two dimensional array in C might look like:

abc[idx1][idx2]

but with tri-graphs would look like:

abc??(idx1??)??(idx2??)

Or if you nested arrays:

abc[zxc[idx1]]

abc??(zxc??(idx1??)??)

Also tabs needed to be replaced with spaces, and looking at the code, I
tried to keep indentation alignment.

fun stuff...

 

[Bent C Dalager]

The worst was running C on an IBM main-frame. Because there are (were?)

Are. In fact, the following code is a semi-famous use of trigraphs to
write code that is difficult to read (I use C++ here for its "//"
comments):

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("First line\n"); // WHAT is going on here ??/
printf("Stealth line\n");
}

When compiled and run, the output of the above is just

First line

when most people would expect

First line
Stealth line

This is because the ??/ trigraph expands to the backslash very early
on, and the backslash causes the next line to the appended to the
current line. The second printf is therefore part of the comment on
the first line.

Fun and games all around

(It varies a bit however as to whether trigraphs default to being
enabled or not in different compilers. When I compile the above code
with Sun C++ 5.8, the trigraph is substituted. When I compile it with
gcc 2.95.4, I need to add the "-trigraphs" option for the same to
happen - gcc defaults to having both lines of text printed.)

Cheers,
Bent D.

 

[Daniel Pitts]

Wojtek wrote :

The worst was running C on an IBM main-frame. Because there are
(were?) no curly braces and other non-text characters you had to use
tri-graph sequences.

Ok, it was not curly braces, but rather [ ] ~ and ^. Forgive me, it was
back in 1990...

[ - ??(
] - ??)
~ - ??\
^ - ??-

So a two dimensional array in C might look like:

abc[idx1][idx2]

but with tri-graphs would look like:

abc??(idx1??)??(idx2??)

Or if you nested arrays:

abc[zxc[idx1]]

abc??(zxc??(idx1??)??)

Also tabs needed to be replaced with spaces, and looking at the code, I
tried to keep indentation alignment.

fun stuff...

Tabs are generally frowned upon anyway. Of course, back then they
probably weren't as counter-productive. Different text handlers tend to
have so many different inconsistent handling of tabs. Not just in tab
length, but in other characteristics, such as whether it is always N
spaces wide, or takes you to the next tab mark.

Not that this has anything to do with this already off-topic thread