[Cialug] [OT] Security and the browser

[Josh More]

Just to take this really far off topic, I'd like to recommend that
everyone participating in this conversation read "The Meaning of
Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary"  ( 
http://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Everything-Oxford-English-Dictionary/dp/019517500X/
).

It's very well written and fascinating, for those of us who appreciate
language enough to quibble about it on a technology list.  :)


 

-Josh More, RHCE, CISSP, NCLP, GIAC 
 morej at alliancetechnologies.net 
 515-245-7701



>>> "Daniel A. Ramaley" <daniel.ramaley at drake.edu> 10/22/08 12:27 PM
>>> 
On Wednesday October 22 2008 12:04, Bryan Baker wrote:
>> It's one of those things where some people use it incorrectly, it  
>> eventually becomes accepted practice to use it incorrectly.
>
>Exactly. It literally means to reduce by 1/10 and is now used as a
>synonym for total destruction (an almost 180*spin).

I think that's getting close to the difference between prescriptive and

descriptive linguistics. I used to have a more prescriptive view of 
language. These days i think (probably as a result of learning some 
Japanese in a non-traditional program) that a descriptive view is 
better. Languages change over time; words change meaning and new 
grammar and vocabulary are developed while old are dropped.

Prescriptivists will tend to think that language should be static and 
not change. I think prescriptivists probably would make better junior 
high language teachers since they are less accepting of "errors". 
Descriptivists who simply try to divine the existing rules of a 
language rather than enforcing some external rules are probably better

at accepting the change of language over time.

Perhaps slightly more on topic: so what does the word "hacker" mean? 
There's a good example of a word that has changed meaning, and did so 
in a very short period of time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Ramaley                            Dial Center 118, Drake
University
Network Programmer/Analyst             2407 Carpenter Ave
+1 515 271-4540                        Des Moines IA 50311 USA
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