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1. The reply is a direct quote from the Dictionary.com page.
2. If your definition of "culturally ignorant" is "doesn't know how many 'r's are in a single word" then I'm hardly hurt by your calling me that. Especially considering I myself am an Australian citizen, not a "Yank".
3. A Google search of "pages from the UK" for "referrer" yields 2.5 million results while "referer" yields 226,000.
4. And finally and perhaps most conclusively, the Oxford Dictionary Online returns no results for "referer", but a definition for "referrer" - and that's in the UK view!

See for yourself:

http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=searchresul ts&freesearch=referer
http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=searchresul ts&freesearch=referrer

In short, fuck you.

1. The reply is a direct quote from the Dictionary.com page.
2. If your definition of "culturally ignorant" is "doesn't know how many 'r's are in a single word" then I'm hardly hurt by your calling me that. Especially considering I myself am an Australian citizen, not a "Yank".
3. A Google search of "pages from the UK" for "referrer" yields 2.5 million results while "referer" yields 226,000.
4. And finally and perhaps most conclusively, the Oxford Dictionary Online returns no results for "referer", but a definition for "referrer" - and that's in the UK view!

See for yourself:

http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=searchresul ts&freesearch=referer
http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=searchresul ts&freesearch=referrer

In short, fuck you.

The primary definition and most commonly intended meaning of "synthetic" is combination of separate components, literally coming from the ancient Greek word suntithenai for "put together"; any other meanings of "synthetic" in both American and British English are secondary - see synthesis and synthetic in AHDEL, 4th ed. (2000), and synthesis and synthetic in COED (2005).

The primary definition and most commonly intended meaning of "synthetic" is combination of separate components, literally coming from the ancient Greek word suntithenai for "put together"; any other meanings of "synthetic" in both American and British English are secondary - see synthesis and synthetic in AHDEL, 4th ed. (2000), and synthesis and synthetic in COED (2005).

So what's the problem? Isn't "misspelt" the right word?

http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dict&freese arch=misspelt&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact

please type the word in this image: digitize

(Can we have British English automated-human test images please, you insensitive clods!)

Actually, -ize is the original and most accepted ending for these verbs in Commonwealth English. It seems the -ise form is a lazier (since some words have to end with -ise) French-inspired form which now enjoys equal footing with the -ize form in Commonwealth English, but not in American English.

I don't have the OED handy, but the Concise OED doesn't include the definition you describe. Unless you count abbreviations of "take a copy", I've never heard "take" being used in that manner before either. Do you have another reference?

Whether something is material or immaterial is not relevant to my argument, by the way.

"It takes a quite a bit of hubris to claim that the mistakes you make due to ignorance or incompetence are going to become a standard."

Oxford English Dictionary: If it genuinely fills a gap in the language, then it may well catch on among a significant section of the population and it will then have become part of the language , and if it is used in print (or can be traced, for example, in scripts or transcripts of broadcasts), it will fall within the sphere of the OED's Reading Programme. There are a number of genuinely invented words in the Oxford English Dictionary. As well as various terms for commercial and industrial products, they include:

* blatant (Edmund Spenser, 1596) * blik (R.M. Hare, 1950) * camelious (Rudyard Kipling, 1902) * finnimbrun (Izaak Walton, 1653) * gigman (Thomas Carlyle, 1830) * Gondal (Emily and Anne Brontë, 1834) * googol (Dr Kasner's 9-year-old nephew, 1940) * grok (Robert Heinlein, 1961) * hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937) * od (Baron von Reichenbach, c.1850) * panorama (R. Barker, 1789) * pushmi-pullyu (Hugh Lofting, 1922) * quark (M. Gell-Mann, 1964) * runcible (Edward Lear, 1871) * shazam (Whiz Comics, 1940) * shmoo (Al Capp, 1948) * slan (A.E. Van Vogt, 1940) * spoof (Arthur Roberts, 1884) * sukebind (Stella Gibbons, 1932) * tracklement (Dorothy Hartley, 1954) * vril (Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1871)

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutdi ctionaries/inventedwords?view=print

Frequently Asked Questions: How do you decide if a new word should go in an Oxford dictionary? We conduct a Reading Programme to collect examples of words in use. If we have enough examples to show that a word has genuinely achieved currency, then we add it to our list of candidates for inclusion, and the editors research its usage and draft an entry. The general rule of thumb for the OED is that any word can be included which appears five times, in five different printed sources, over a period of five years. Oxford's smaller dictionaries of current English may include words with a shorter history. Once a word has come to our attention, we will investigate sources such as film scripts or transcripts of broadcasts if they are available and seem likely to add to our knowledge of the word's origin. http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutdi ctionaries/choose?view=print

"It takes a quite a bit of hubris to claim that the mistakes you make due to ignorance or incompetence are going to become a standard."

Oxford English Dictionary: If it genuinely fills a gap in the language, then it may well catch on among a significant section of the population and it will then have become part of the language , and if it is used in print (or can be traced, for example, in scripts or transcripts of broadcasts), it will fall within the sphere of the OED's Reading Programme. There are a number of genuinely invented words in the Oxford English Dictionary. As well as various terms for commercial and industrial products, they include:

* blatant (Edmund Spenser, 1596) * blik (R.M. Hare, 1950) * camelious (Rudyard Kipling, 1902) * finnimbrun (Izaak Walton, 1653) * gigman (Thomas Carlyle, 1830) * Gondal (Emily and Anne Brontë, 1834) * googol (Dr Kasner's 9-year-old nephew, 1940) * grok (Robert Heinlein, 1961) * hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937) * od (Baron von Reichenbach, c.1850) * panorama (R. Barker, 1789) * pushmi-pullyu (Hugh Lofting, 1922) * quark (M. Gell-Mann, 1964) * runcible (Edward Lear, 1871) * shazam (Whiz Comics, 1940) * shmoo (Al Capp, 1948) * slan (A.E. Van Vogt, 1940) * spoof (Arthur Roberts, 1884) * sukebind (Stella Gibbons, 1932) * tracklement (Dorothy Hartley, 1954) * vril (Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1871)

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutdi ctionaries/inventedwords?view=print

Frequently Asked Questions: How do you decide if a new word should go in an Oxford dictionary? We conduct a Reading Programme to collect examples of words in use. If we have enough examples to show that a word has genuinely achieved currency, then we add it to our list of candidates for inclusion, and the editors research its usage and draft an entry. The general rule of thumb for the OED is that any word can be included which appears five times, in five different printed sources, over a period of five years. Oxford's smaller dictionaries of current English may include words with a shorter history. Once a word has come to our attention, we will investigate sources such as film scripts or transcripts of broadcasts if they are available and seem likely to add to our knowledge of the word's origin. http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutdi ctionaries/choose?view=print

They don't even mention the possibility that it has anything to do with Gypsies, nor is it flagged as offensive.

Yes, as we all know, there's only one definition for each word, right?. Oxford lists TWO definitions for the word, and that's just the compact version:

gyp1
/jip/ (also gip)
noun Brit. informal pain or discomfort.

gyp2
/jip/ informal
verb (gypped, gypping) cheat or swindle.
noun a swindle.

From UrbanDictionary.com:

Used as a term to describe when one has received less than they paid for. Most people do not realize it's a racist term that stems from nomadic 'gypsies' who are stereotyped as theiving criminals. "Man, look at your glass. You got gypped on the Coke."

Look, this wasn't intended to slight ANYONE. My intent was to educate, then let people make their own choice. Not everyone knows this, as another poster previously noted. I didn't take offense at this issue personally, as it didn't seem to be intended as a derogatory statement. I tried to make that clear in my first post. Apparently I failed. I apologize. I didn't call the poster an insensitive clod, or attack him in any way. I simply said "You might consider..." and left it at that. I'm having trouble seeing where I caused offense, but it wasn't my intention. If there is any doubt in your mind, perhaps you should check my past posts, in which I tend to score 5 once every four posts because I try to HELP PEOPLE. I'm not in the habit of intentionally alienating anyone, and I apologize if my intentions were unclear. Relax already.

1. Morse Code was developed so that the most frequently used characters are the quickest to transmit. For example, E and T, the most commonly used letters in the English alphabet, each take one keypress to send (see http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwo rds/frequency for details). With T9, on the other hand, each character has the same "cost" - even Q and Z.
2. You can keep one thumb on the key for short tones, and your other thumb on the key for long tones. Because you now don't need to look or feel for the letter you want to send, seek time drops to zero; you are limited in your speed only by how fast you can map letters to their Morse equivalents in you head, and how fast your mobile device can process inputs. Given technological improvements in cell phones over the years, that make competitive multimedia systems and are almost certainly not going to be the bottleneck.

No, really. That's how it started, usually the title of a section, paragraph or similar.

Obviously the bit of red text contained something someone thought was important so eventually the word came to mean an important rule or important passage. These days it means an important set of rules.

http://www.dictionary.com/
htttp://www.m-w.com/
http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk

So apparently you're both equally wrong, or right, as your glass may be... (pl. mice) or (pl. also mouses) (but only wrt a group of computer mice).

I'm not sure what you mean by "formal definition". I'm certainly not going to accept a sloppy definition of "evangelist" just because it happens to be used in WordNet by some computer science student. In any case, "evangelist", like most words, has multiple meanings. You can't refute my argument just by insisting on a usage different from the one I meant.

I checked offline before posting that definition link. In any case, Merriam-Webster and Oxford agree. I disagree with your view of .edu links, they are often more trustworthy than .com links for various reasons.

Perhaps my point will be clearer if I restate my orginal argument without using that controversial word: Too much Linux advocacy is based on somebody's heartfelt belief that Linux is superior in every way to Windows. Not just superior technically, but socially, economically, even morally.

I've never met an advocate that says Linux, or any FOSS, is superior in every way, particularly from a technical point of view. You're creating a straw man.

I don't actually disagree with most of that -- I just think that most decision makers don't give a shit.

It's partly about teaching them to give a shit - about taking the long term view, not the loaded short-term TCO arguments that M$ likes to push. I agree it's an alien way of thinking to many at the moment but you've got to start somewhere,

If you want them to use Linux -- or any other OSS solution -- you need to show them how it addresses their needs as they perceive them, and stop trying to change their whole world view.

Like I said, I think we need to do both. Addressing their immediate needs and also get them thinking long term.

M$ seems to think it's worth spending millions on biased "feel good" ad's with no actual content. Why is that? Can FOSS afford to ignore those ad's? I don't think so.

I think we're in agreement that FOSS should be promoted, just disagree on the emphasis.

Part of what's happening is that many Linux proponents are young. They're passionate about what they do. You're trying to push back the tide if you want to stop that.

---

Commercial software bigots - a dying breed.

I had to say it after reading Aluminum too many times.

See:
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/aluminium
(May not work outside uk, try appending ?view=uk)
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=239 1&dict=CALD

I have been told the history on why Americans call it wrong, but I forget

I had to say it after reading Aluminum too many times.

See:
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/aluminium
(May not work outside uk, try appending ?view=uk)
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=239 1&dict=CALD

I have been told the history on why Americans call it wrong, but I forget

Actually, English is acquiring new words at a fast pace, probably thousands per year. Even the staid Oxford Dictionary records many new words in each edition.

Uh.. why is 'virii' so bad that it's an abomination?

Because it's completely unnecessary and just plain silly. There's no reason why all words ending in -us must change their plurals to -ii. Consider hippopotamus.

You wouldn't say, "He's a bus driver. He drives bii." Would you?

Nice troll, Sheetrock.

Obligatory response. IHBT, IHL, IWHAND.

The plural of virus is neither viri nor virii, nor even vira nor virora. It is quite simply viruses, respective of context. Here's why.

First off, the OED gives nothing but viruses for the plural. Here's its abbreviated entry:

Etymology: a. L. virus slimy liquid, poison, offensive odour or taste. Hence also Fr., Sp., Pg. virus.

1. Venom, such as is emitted by a poisonous animal. Also fig.

2. Path. a A morbid principle or poisonous substance produced in the body as the result of some disease, esp. one capable of being introduced into other persons or animals by inoculations or otherwise and of developing the same disease in them. Now superseded by the next sense.

b Pl. viruses. An infectious organism that is usu. submicroscopic, can multiply only inside certain living host cells (in many cases causing disease) and is now understood to be a non-cellular structure lacking any intrinsic metabolism and usually comprising a DNA or RNA core inside a protein coat (see also quot. 1977). [ Formerly referred to as filterable viruses, their first distinguishing characteristic being the ability to pass through filters that retained bacteria. ]

Other sources that support viruses include Birchfield (né Fowler :-) in Modern English Usage (3rd Edition), and also the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.

http://www.askoxford.com/ for further erudation and elucidation on the behalf of the reader.

The plural of "octopus" is "octopuses."

"Octopi" as a plural started as an ignorant mistake.

Read more about it here.

By the way, you come off as a wanker with phrases like "newsflash for you", and your arrogent and stereotyping proposition that because I was unaware of one spelling difference between our use of english I was unaware of all variations in spelling.

I shouldn't have posted what I did. The simple correction from the other bloke was sufficient.

I believe that quote is to be taken more literally than figuratively:

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/abouten glish/mostwords

Thank you kindly for your language advice. I'd like to return the favor by heling you understand the meaning of the term vocabulary, which refers to words, and not phrases - even if they're really obscure ones. That's okay - as you've explained, many Slashdot posters don't have English as a first language, and I shouldn't judge you on that basis.

That said, as the idea of the term 'open source code' being equivalent to 'Open Source' is roughly similar the concept of 'Jack is hungry' being equivalent to 'Hungry Jack's' (a fast food chain), would you suggest these aforementioned hungry persons named John should invalidate that organization's trademark?

An American or a British trillion?

An American trillion is equal to a British billion, or 1e+12.

Yes. This is messed up.

I have no idea what you meant by 'mealy mouthed', nor would most people

For help in understanding unfamiliar vocabulary, I recommend:

AskOxford
or
dictionary.com

It's easy to forget that many Slashdot posters do not have English as a first language and I should probably have used simpler terms. Your vocabulary actually seems quite good.

I claimed that it was as I have yet to be proven otherwise

You claimed what was what?

Your original claim was "Open Source is not a generic term. It is a term invented by the OSI and has a strict definition". You have now conceded, in your mealy mouthed way, that that is untrue but have moved on to splitting hairs over whether it was used as an adjective. I don't plan to wade through every link checking to see whether it was or not because it isn't relevant. The term "open source" was not invented by the OSI.

Is it a business professor at an American school or a British school? I think you need to accept that using foreign spellings because you think it looks cool is not professional.

I got marked down in grade school for using aeroplane instead of airplane in an essay. The essay was about a book, and in the book it was spelled airplane. At the time I thought the teacher just didn't like me, but really she was right. It was only 1 point off and I learned (learnt?) a few things from the whole ordeal.

If you want to argue with her after you're done with the course here's some ammo from Oxford dictionaries

What happened at Kalkar was FAR worse - far more money was invested (i.e. wasted) by various governments. Read all about it here. My parents paid the extra "Kalkar tax" (to pay for the reactor) for years and years, and now it, too, is a theme park. And not even a nuclear theme park, it is simply a health spa. I know, I visited while you could still see most of the reactor and equipment...

Oddly enough, this is in Germany as well. Makes you wonder...

Actually, "antennae" is correct for both, but "antennas" is only correct for electronics. Source: The OED.

Yamaha came out with something similar back in 2002 called DiscT@2

DiscTat2? DiscTAT? Why didn't it sell?

OK is not a word

English can be a tricky language, but keep trying and eventually you'll get the hang of it, OK?

It's an Americanism. M-W will of course have it in their dictionary, as they are an American company. If you ask the OED, then you'll find it as a North American term for "burgle". Instead of everyone criticizing each other, maybe we should _all_ learn to check a variety of sources before making such statements.

You won't find such abuses of the English language in the OED.

You mean, you wouldn't find this page?

It does say, "North American term for burgle", but still... It *is* in the OED.

Jo, det beror ju på vad man betyder när man säger 'de flesta orden' men enligt Oxford University Press har engelskan ganska många ord.

Nope - we Brits spell it 'er' as well.

I take it you're talking about 'Grammar'. We Brits spell it with 'ar', according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Actually, no. Right mountain, wrong climber.

This list only has ENGLISH words, and as we all know, "grok" is Martian.

I believe it has been officially adopted, see this FAQ item.

(Although they seem to think Heinlein invented it...)

I'm not sure if you are American or not, but in the Queens English practice is a noun. Practise is the verb which means to train to improve ones skill.

It just seems kind of funny that someone who is advising somoeone else on their English may not have it right either. That being said, I'm sure there are more than one or two mistakes in this post. :)

I'm not sure if you are American or not, but in the Queens English practice is a noun. Practise is the verb which means to train to improve ones skill.

It just seems kind of funny that someone who is advising somoeone else on their English may not have it right either. That being said, I'm sure there are more than one or two mistakes in this post. :)

Actually in real English (as spoken in England) it's still Hopkins' with no extra 's'. Maybe the Oxford Dictionary can help both you and Hopkins. Hopkin's. Hopkinses. Hopkins's. Whatever.

Anyway, you're right about the false positive's in spell checkers.

That's One Trillion US, not a US metric ton. The US and British numbering systems differ when numbers start getting large:
10^12 = trillion (US) = billion (UK)
10^18 = quintillion (US) = trillion (UK)
You can also check this out for more info.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary recognizes both symbols as the pound sign, as does dictionary.com. Oxford even addressed the question and recognized the fact that is it called the "pound sign" in the United States, though it confuses the British. In conclusion, # has many names, one of which is "pound sign" in American English.

er, if you mean by open source in this context, something available on the net freely, here are a few links for french.

wiki french
french villas
ielanguages
french phrases
tiscali french phrases
yet another french phrases page
ask oxford
naciente

----

but then, there is this wacky page - use at your own risk:

courteous french

Actually, the dollar sign is more likely originally from "PS", short for "peso". US$ is often used for "US dollar" because other countries also use the word "dollar" for their own currency unit. HK$, for example, is for Hong Kong Dollars.

I did some checking around, and it turns out we're both wrong. While there is some dispute, the most likely origin of '$' is from a shorthand way of writing 'pesos', 'ps' (the 's' should be superscript). As time went on, it evolved into '$'.

See http://www.pballew.net/dollar.html and http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutsy mbols/dollarsign.

So, I retract my previous statement. And since '$' isn't derived from 'US', there's nothing wrong with other countries using that symbol for their currency, or with denoting the country of origin. I apologize for my wrong statements. I still think the editors should've switched which currency was being referrenced in the blurb, since this is a mainly US site, and it's to be expected that all currencies, unless stated, are in US dollars.

Morse code is an early variable-length data compression stanard (similar to Huffman codes or Shannon-Fano codes). By representing common letters with shorter codes ("E = "," and "T" = "-") and rare letters with longer codes ("Z" = "--.." an "Q" = "--.-"), Morse code manages to encode the 26 letters of the alphabet in 4 bits maximum and much less than 4 bits per letter on average.

Although Morse did use letter frequencies in constructing his code, it is not a truely optimized code, from what I can tell. Numbers are encoded with a cumbersome 5 bits per digit. Also, the transmission time of messages might be further reduced with minor rearrangements of the code to use more dots (short transmission time) in more frequent letters and more dashes (long transmission time) in the less frequent letters.

Surely the definition from a 53 year old dictionary is perfectly acceptable if there are no alternative definitions? As for a recent dictionary, you can check it out right no in the current COD

Orientated is the British version of the word, you insensitve clod.

Don't believe me? Ask the OED!

Learnt is British English. Grammar, however, is spelled with an 'a' all over the world.

"Realized"? Oh dear. Worse than using Americanisms is using American spellings. Outside North America the word is spelt "realised". Perhaps if you actually were from the UK you'd have learnt that.

By common agreement, the American convention of a billion = 1,000,000,000 is used in professional contexts. More information from here:

How many is a billion?

If you are American, it is undoubtedly 1,000,000,000. This amount is known to traditionally minded British people as `a thousand million', and by some more adventurous ones as a 'milliard', though this word has not made as much headway in English as in some other European languages. A trillion is then 1,000,000,000,000, and so on.

If you are British, on the other hand, a billion may be 1,000,000,000,000 (a million million), following the older convention.

If you are neither British nor American, you can take your pick! (Both systems were invented by the French, but are called 'British' and 'American' for convenience.)

Once the business world and the financial press found themselves discussing `thousand millions' so much, the 'American' system simply became more convenient, despite a certain lack of logical tidiness. (A 'British' trillion is the third power of a million, while the 'American' one is the fourth power of a thousand, and the 'American' system continues out of sync with the arithmetic). It also makes the profits sound bigger! The 'American' system is now standard use in British government publications, and is becoming the norm in many other languages.

For what it's worth, I grew up in New Zealand, and I have always considered a billion to be a million million (the British system), but have known from my physics and maths classes to use a thousand million in these contexts. So, how's that? Clear as mud?