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So, if the plural of "stylus" is "stylii", does that mean the plural of "radius" is "radiii"?

Why yes, yes it is.

I have to have gotten SOME benefit form those two years of Latin... (rolls eyes)

(Not to be a pedant, but it's "pretense" by the way.)

British vs. American English. I try to stick with British, but I am not always successful.

Oxford Dictionaries entry for pretence

America is winning a worldwide race to the bottom.

This happened in Canada, dumbass.

America has many problems, including the fact that many of its citizens believe it to be the center of the Universe—if not the entirety of it.

Canada lies in (North-)America, dumbass.

The United States of America have many problems, including the fact that many of its citizens believe it to be the center of America—if not the entirety of it.

Note the first link on that Wikipedia page.

Of course, there are also a more authorative sources

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bullshit
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/bullshit?q=bullshit

it sure would make it sound more human. just not the human you'd prefer.

Oxford disagrees (about conjunctions, but you are spot on about potatoes): http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/conjunctions It is fine to start a sentence with and.

For the last few years, I've been using Android tablets ... I started out with a Motorola Xoom

How can you have been using something "for the last few years" when it's been out less than 2?

I'd personally consider 1 year and 10 months to be a "few years", and apparently so would merrian-webster, reference.com, and oxford. Even if "few" required it to be 2 (which is does not), I'd still consider that close enough to 2 to not get your panties in a bunch over it.

So....reduced by 10% then?

That's an anachronistic definition. Modern definition, as defined by the OED:

kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of

"Defence" is perfectly acceptable.

You are ignoring the huge and lucrative gray area of avoision which is the fuzzy area between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion.

Literally thousands of tax attorneys spend their entire careers coming up with borderline schemes whose legality is undefined and is constantly being determined and redefined by the courts.

There is some surprise for developers with this console.

"There is a surprise" or "there are some surprises" but never "there is some."

Since I feel it's fair to grammar-nazi a grammar-nazi:

Actually, surprise can be used a mass noun, which makes the usage correct, even if it's a bit awkward. AC above is also correct in pointing out that even if used as a countable noun, "some surprise" is not wrong either. ("That was some surprise!")

Not to mention, that wasn't a sentence.

Definition of the word being, "A person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims."

And the definition of terrorism. "Violence committed or threatened by a group to intimidate or coerce a population, as for military or political purposes."

The FBI should consider updating their list of "designated terrorist groups".

I came to say the exact same thing, but I clicked through the maze of links first, and found:

Pronunciation: /jif, gif/

The OED describes, not prescribes.

Since it's Graphics Interchange Format I've always said 'gif' with a hard 'g' sound. I guess for some older folks, gif is like gin or giraffe, and so 'jif'. It certainly seems like anyone paying any attention at all would say 'gif' though.

I'm amazed GIF made it, they haven't even added "sausage" to the dictionary yet.

That is not true: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/sausage?region=us&q=sausage

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/GIF
Pronunciation: /jif, gif/

::twitch::

Pronunciation: /jif, gif/

The OED describes, not prescribes.

I prefer their UK word of the year: omnishambles.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/11/uk-word-of-the-year-2012/

However, it's customary for people to agree upon the definitions of words that they use when discussing the concepts underlying those words. I try to stick to the definitions in the dictionary so that we all have a reference that we agree upon.

Sure, but I'd advise you to do this il front, and to be aware that the first definition you find isn't necessarily the only one.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/atheism

We're you not aware that there are other dictionaries and that atheism, simply based on its etymology, can mean a lack of belief?

I hate to interrupt your bullshit, but the quintessential source of information on the English language begs to differ.

I hate to interrupt your bullshit with fully citable facts, but the OED says 171,476 in current use and 47,156 obsolete or deprecated.

I hate to interrupt your bullshit with fully citable facts, but the OED says 171,476 in current use and 47,156 obsolete or deprecated.

Even if you as an attacker know that the user chose 2 arbitrary words out of the English language as their password (or that only two mattered), and you knew there was a space between them, and you knew the login was case-insensitive, you still have to deal with the (minimum) 29,403,847,100 possible password phrases (171,476 common-use words times 171,475 unique second words, if we ignore word duplication and obsolete words). This also assumes, of course, that the password used correct spelling and did not in any way try to obfuscate the words with replacement schemes like l33t speak.

Tell me again why it is terrible advice to use phrases?

And at 100 billion guesses a second, using multiple GPU cards in a custom setup, you can test all those password in about 0.3 seconds.

Even if you as an attacker know that the user chose 2 arbitrary words out of the English language as their password (or that only two mattered), and you knew there was a space between them, and you knew the login was case-insensitive, you still have to deal with the (minimum) 29,403,847,100 possible password phrases (171,476 common-use words times 171,475 unique second words, if we ignore word duplication and obsolete words). This also assumes, of course, that the password used correct spelling and did not in any way try to obfuscate the words with replacement schemes like l33t speak.

Tell me again why it is terrible advice to use phrases?

"Well, heck, it's on the internet, so it must be true!"
And them link to someplace on the internet.

Why can't an English teach has never been wrong?

Oxford is wrong to?
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/stupid?region=us&q=stupid

Their free online site looks almost like a scam made to appropriate the OUP credentials. It's loaded with ads of dubious services, and looks like if a scammer designed it. I didn't bother checking if it's legitimate -- whois looks reassuring, but hey, in practice anyone can put anything they want in their domain contact data. I'd go to see a printed version at a library to confirm your, um, findings.

It's a race for dominance as the stupidest state in the nation.

Most stupid; 'stupidest' is not a word. I'd say whichever state you received your education from is obviously a front runner in that race...

You sure about that? Absolutely, 100%? Well, then, looks like someone made the stupidest post of the day

Hint: when being pedantic about English, make sure the Oxford English dictionary doesn't contradict you. If it does, not only are you an ass for your pedantry, you also look like a stupid ass.

I see your pair of American-English dictionaries & raise you a proper English-English dictionary: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/bullseye?q=bullseye

Note the absence of a space or a fucking hypen?

You utter, uneducated twat! You've really hit the Eye belonging to a Bull with your razor sharp intellect.

That's exactly the point I was making: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/bullseye?q=bullseye

An assault rifle by definition must be able to fire in fully-automatic mode. An assault rifle is a selective-fire weapon. This means it can switch between fully-automatic and semi-automatic mode.

Definition of assault rifle
noun

        a rapid-fire, magazine-fed automatic rifle designed for infantry use.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/assault%2Brifle?region=us&q=assault+rifle

To follow up on my message,

I think that 2000 common words is unrealistically too small a vocabulary for everyday use.

It's probably on the order of 10,000 in daily use by joe schmoe.

The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries. Over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives, and about a seventh verbs; the rest is made up of exclamations, conjunctions, prepositions, suffixes, etc. And these figures don't take account of entries with senses for different word classes (such as noun and adjective).

This suggests that there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the OED, or words not yet added to the published dictionary, of which perhaps 20 per cent are no longer in current use. If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million.

- http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-many-words-are-there-in-the-english-language

and....

In December 2010 a joint Harvard/Google study found the language to contain 1,022,000 words and to expand at the rate of 8,500 words per year.[84] The findings came from a computer analysis of 5,195,769 digitised books. Others have estimated a rate of growth of 25,000 words each year.[85]

- wikipedia.

What does this mean?

IMO, predicting what people are going to use for their correcthorsebatterystapler passwords is nigh impossible and to crack the password of someone who is evenly slightly motivated to have a non-weak one will probably require heat-death of the universe time to crack with a distributed crack. There will always those who use "it's just the letter A" but there is no cure for stupidity.

"It's just the letter A" http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uRGljemfwUE#t=399s

YMMV of course.

--
BMO

I am unsure where you heard that there are only 15,222 words in the English language but I just checked the OED website and they say it's closer to 170,000 words. http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-many-words-are-there-in-the-english-language

there are 15,222 words in the english language according to oxford english dictionary.

This is off by more than an order of magnitude: the Oxford English Dictionary claims it has 171,476 words in it and point out that this is an underestimate of how many base words are in the English language -- probably more like 250,000 -- and that doesn't begin to cover compound or specialist words.

It already is in the OED, although that isn't what it means. It means someone who is able to read and write perfectly well, but chooses not to do so. Essentially a synonym of "book shy".

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/aliterate

oed.com seems to require an account to search, however oxforddictionaries.com seems to be okay.

1 kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of: the inhabitants of the country had been decimated
      - drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something): public transport has been decimated

2 historical kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group: the man who is to determine whether it be necessary to decimate a large body of mutineers

it also has the following to say under origins:

Historically, the meaning of the word decimate is ‘kill one in every ten of (a group of people)’. This sense has been more or less totally superseded by the later, more general sense ‘kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of’, as in the virus has decimated the population. Some traditionalists argue that this is incorrect, but it is clear that it is now part of standard English.

Orient can also be a verb: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/orient?region=us&q=orient

I disagree. My understanding is that "hacker" predates "cracker", and that some nerds decided they didn't like the pejorative sense of "hacker", so they adopted it as their own (cf. "nigger") and proffered "cracker" as a pejorative replacement. Most nerds, and all non-nerds, rejected this attempt at redefining the word "hacker", and continued to use it with its original meaning. To this day, that minority of nerds, especially the ones who like rhetorical pugilism, continue to make their specious case on Internet forums.

I offer the Oxford dictionary as a cite: hacker. Note that your preferred definition is given as a secondary, informal definition. Their definition of "cracker" is similar.

all words are made up. Muggle is a valid word. It is in the dictionary because people use it.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/muggle?q=muggle

Haha I love Oxford's example: "she’s a muggle: no IT background, understanding, or aptitude at all"

all words are made up. Muggle is a valid word. It is in the dictionary because people use it.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/muggle?q=muggle

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-many-is-a-billion

In British English, a billion used to be equivalent to a million million (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000), while in American English it has always equated to a thousand million (i.e. 1,000,000,000). British English has now adopted the American figure, though, so that a billion equals a thousand million in both varieties of English.

The same sort of change has taken place with the meaning of trillion. In British English, a trillion used to mean a million million million (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000). Nowadays, it's generally held to be equivalent to a million million (1,000,000,000,000), as it is in American English.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/ending-sentences-with-prepositions Now fuck off.

The dictionary shows common usage, not correct usage.

As has been pointed out in countless threads on Slashdot -- by the time it's been in common usage long enough, it is the correct usage.

Since you're talking about a word which originated with the Roman Army, it's had a lot of time to change its meaning. In fact, it's apparently been in use like this since the 19th Century. So, well over 100 years by now.

In fact, in my lifetime, I've only heard it in its modern form. So, sorry you're all bummed out that the usage of the word has changed over time ... but I'd suggest getting over it. :-P

Hell, even Oxford says:

Some traditionalists argue that this is incorrect, but it is clear that it is now part of standard English.

Language evolves over time. This is just one instance.

But, hey, cling to your pedantry if that makes you feel better.

I think you misspelled action as outcome in that last reply.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/process

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/action

http://thesaurus.com/browse/process

Denotatively a process and an action are largely the same. They have different connotations: for example ‘process’ specifically carries the connotation of a series of actions. In reality though, there are very few actions that are not themselves processes (i.e. that cannot be broken up into sub actions at some level).

I think you misspelled action as outcome in that last reply.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/process

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/action

http://thesaurus.com/browse/process

Denotatively a process and an action are largely the same. They have different connotations: for example ‘process’ specifically carries the connotation of a series of actions. In reality though, there are very few actions that are not themselves processes (i.e. that cannot be broken up into sub actions at some level).

"Rare" is by definition a relative term.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rare

Disproving your argument: Humans were designed by evolution. "Design" does not mean what you think it means. Have a look and notice the occurrence of the words "plan, purpose, function" etc in every definition except "Decorative Pattern". So no, nothing, not even humans or archaea were designed by evolution. Because evolution, deep breath, has no purpose. It's not even a thing or a process with relevant starting configurations or something that needs believing in.

It's just what happens when things replicate. Even the condition that the replicas must not be exact copies is not an axiom or even a real condition. When things replicate without any error, none of the two outcomes are in any way relevant to evolution: either every bit of matter is converted to replicas or all replicas are gone.

Deep breath again...We can explain the variety of life and all we know about our planet and even further without needing the hypothesis of god.

Sucking all that meaning out of the GPs little remark, combined with multiple occurrences of "asshole" and the like points me to the conclusion that you're the zealot here.

In standard English English, "state" is a synonym of "nation". Definition 2 in the OED for state is

a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government: Germany, Italy, and other European states

And just in case you wanted to use a real dictionary...

Do you get off on being offensive, stupid or wrong? Since your post is all three, it's hard to tell.

I won't address "offensive", as that's a matter of the person offended. I'll ask about "wrong"; if shown not wrong, "stupid" would imply "right by accident".

So the three assertions made in the post to which you're responding are:

1. "This is an argument for why GCC is not modular, not compilers in general. For example, LLVM is highly modular."
2. "Different optimizations apply at different stages of compilation... you know when you have differing semantic information available to guide those optimizations!?!"
3. "Oh, and "reification" does not mean "steady refinement". Reification means "to make real"."

If the first is wrong, then there must be no modular compilers. Are you ready to make that assertion? If so, what supports that assertion?

If the second is wrong, what would "the absolute final stage" of compilation take as input - some intermediate representation, or generated code (as e.g. a peephole optimizer does)?

If the third is wrong, why should we prefer your use of "reify" to the one from the Oxford Dictionaries Web site?

You keep using those words.
I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

So do you.

Look, the reality is when Oxford says "However , over the last 100 years or so another, more general use has arisen: "invite an obvious question" ... This is by far the commonest use today and is the usual one in modern standard English." ... your definition from formal logic is nice and all, but no longer definitive.

English is a hodge-podge of a bunch of different languages, filled with idioms, and changes over time. Just because they have some of the same words, doesn't mean they're not two completely different expressions.

Unless, of course, you consider yourself more authoritative than Oxford. At which point, you're most likely wrong.

Seriously, get over it.

The confusion about 'fruit' and 'vegetable' arises because of the differences in usage between scientists and cooks.

- OED

Quoting wikipedia as an Anonymous Coward...FAIL.

Oxford Dictionary
Stereotype: a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing