Why is it dangerous?

[Doug Miller]

Doug Miller said:


A few.

Not very well, evidently.

I spent several years working for a small US subsidiary of a much larger
Canadian firm. I can assure you that *none* of the Canadians I worked with
thought of themselves as "Americans".

Really.

Ask them.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Be careful about what you say. Are you referring to me when you say
"troll"? I'm not (at least no one's ever called me that before).
You're deliberately calling a "troll" someone who isn't one and for no
reason. That makes *you* a troll.

<snip>

Flash will no doubt answer for himself, but I don't believe he was
referring to you, and I'm at a loss to understand why you would assume
that he was.

 

[s0suk3]

Flash will no doubt answer for himself, but I don't believe he was
referring to you, and I'm at a loss to understand why you would assume
that he was.

Because I'm the one who posted the humorous list about "On-topic" and
"Off-topic" subjects, which may well be interpreted as someone
"bitching about topicality rules."

Sebastian

 

[Flash Gordon]

Keith is correct.

Because I'm the one who posted the humorous list about "On-topic" and
"Off-topic" subjects, which may well be interpreted as someone
"bitching about topicality rules."

It was not because of you posting that list.

To be honest I can't remember enough posts by you to have formed *any*
opinion about you. I've no idea if this is because of my bad memory or
if you have not posted enough to this group for me to have formed an
opinion.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Because I'm the one who posted the humorous list about "On-topic" and
"Off-topic" subjects, which may well be interpreted as someone
"bitching about topicality rules."

Antoninus Twink has posted in this thread. I wouldn't worry about
anyone calling *you* a troll.

But I'll point out that Flash didn't mention your name, yet you jumped
very quickly from asking him whether he was calling you a troll to
stating, with no apparent doubt, that he was deliberately doing so.
If you really were worried about it, you might have asked and then
waited for an answer.

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

Default User, stop arguing with Richard about the use of the term
"Usanian" on this group.

Richard, stop arguing with Default User about the term "Usanian"
on this group.
.... snip ...

It has taken both of you for this argument to run on, so by now in
my opinion you are both just as guilty of holding a long-running
off-topic argument and for *this* group it is completely irrelevant
which if you is right or wrong.

Applause.

 

[s0suk3]

Keith is correct.


It was not because of you posting that list.

To be honest I can't remember enough posts by you to have formed *any*
opinion about you. I've no idea if this is because of my bad memory or
if you have not posted enough to this group for me to have formed an
opinion.

Then, sorry for the misunderstanding :-/

Sebastian

 

[Ben Bacarisse]

Default User said:

It's not an abbreviation.

....and later...

| United States of America -> United States of American (for which "Usanian"
| is a convenient contraction).

<snip>

| Just remind me how many angels it was?

There's another pin-full right there.

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

No contradiction, according to my lights. When I was in school, I
was taught that to form an abbreviation you took the first letter
of each word, as in "BBC" for "British Broadcasting Corporation",
"RAF" for "Royal Air Force", "MCC" for "Marylebone Cricket Club",
etc. (If they happened to form a pronounceable word, then you had
not only an abbreviation but also an acronym.) But "contraction"
was a more general term that referred to a more general shortening,
not merely the taking of each first letter.

I see none of this in any C99 standard.

 

[Ben Bacarisse]

Ben Bacarisse said:


No contradiction, according to my lights.

In the part you clipped I said this was another whole pin-full of
angels to count -- i.e. that it is endlessly debatable.

When I was in school, I was
taught that to form an abbreviation you took the first letter of each
word, as in "BBC" for "British Broadcasting Corporation", "RAF" for "Royal
Air Force", "MCC" for "Marylebone Cricket Club", etc. (If they happened to
form a pronounceable word, then you had not only an abbreviation but also
an acronym.) But "contraction" was a more general term that referred to a
more general shortening, not merely the taking of each first letter.

OK. While I would not trust my schooling to have been accurate about
anything, I accept that you might. I won't cite any authorities in
support of a much broader meaning for the term because that would just
invite you to cite still more. Instead, I invite you to agree that it
is debatable and that we should not debate it here.

 

[santosh]

I see none of this in any C99 standard.

A bit too late for this thread. Just killfile it.

 

[santosh]

You forgot:

- The general practice of programming and computer science

comp.programming?

[ ... ]

- Any real world program written in C outside of command line
utilities

They are topical. However most of the posters are newbies with
elementary questions.

- Comparisons of C with any other language

This should be topical, though of course, it's prone to spiralling into
flamewars.

<snip>

 

[Joachim Schmitz]

Oh come on, has this ever actually happened?

Yes it surely has. It has also happend that passengers not using their belt
injured/killed the (belted) driver in such accidents.

Bye, Jojo

 

[Ian Collins]

Yes it surely has. It has also happend that passengers not using their belt
injured/killed the (belted) driver in such accidents.

Which is why sensible countries require back seat passengers to wear
seatbelts. How does this relate to C by the way?

 

[Antoninus Twink]

Yes it surely has. It has also happend that passengers not using their belt
injured/killed the (belted) driver in such accidents.

[citation needed]

 

[Doug Miller]

Doug Miller said:


Begging the question.

I notice you snipped the rest of my post, restored here for your convenience:
---------------
I spent several years working for a small US subsidiary of a much larger
Canadian firm. I can assure you that *none* of the Canadians I worked with
thought of themselves as "Americans".

Really.

Ask them.

 

[Doug Miller]

No point. I have no comment to make on your experience, which differs from
mine. It is possible that you are confused by the fact that Canadians are
likely to think of and describe themselves as Canadians rather than
Americans for the same reason that Germans are likely to think of and
describe themselves as Germans rather than Europeans. That does not mean
that Canadians are not Americans, any more than it means that Germans are
not Europeans.

You seem determined to ignore the point here: Canadians *don't* consider
themselves to be "Americans", your anti-American fantasies to the contrary
notwithstanding.

 

[Keith Thompson]

You seem determined to ignore the point here: Canadians *don't* consider
themselves to be "Americans", your anti-American fantasies to the contrary
notwithstanding.

I am now determined to ignore the point, whatever it might be.
I invite everyone to join me in ignoring the point. If you must
continue to discuss this, please take it somewhere else.

 

[Doug Miller]

Doug Miller said:


You seem to be confusing the point, which is that the term "American",
whilst it /does/ apply to Usanians, *also* applies to other people living
in North and South America.

No, *you're* confusing the point -- which is that while *you* might think
this, *they* don't.

Canadians /are/ Americans (whether or not they
consider themselves to be Americans), because they live in America
(specifically, North America) - just as much as Usanians are Americans and
Brazilians are Americans.

Ahh, I see -- what *they* think they are doesn't matter. *You* already know.

 

[santosh]

No, *you're* confusing the point -- which is that while *you* might
think this, *they* don't.


Ahh, I see -- what *they* think they are doesn't matter. *You* already
know.

I tend to note that in literature from before the mid 20th century, the
word "America" and "the Americas" is used quite often to refer to the
entire north and south American landmass, while early travellers seem
to have used the word "American" for all the people of this landmass
simultaneously with other more specific designations.

In any case, calling a Brazilian or a Canadian, or a Cuban "American" is
as "correct" as calling a Japanese, a Mongol, an Indian, a Russian, an
Israeli, and an East Timorese, as an "Asian", even though in day-to-day
life a representative individual of all these countries will not think
of himself as "Asian".

Just as the word "Asian" applies to collectively to all the people of
Asia and not exclusively to the citizens of one or more of it's
constituent countries, the word "American" should also apply to all the
people of north and south America and not exclusively to the citizens
of the USA. I agree that in common usage that it doesn't, but that
doesn't make it "correct".

Personally I don't like the word "Usanian" for a country-specific
designation of the citizens of the USA (the word sounds and feels
awkward), but I can't think of a better word either.

Maybe the time has come to deprecate and mark as obsolescent the whole
notion of continents, and instead just deal with countries?