Slashdot Mirror

Monopoly Just shows slashbotters are redefining the word. Maybe we can redefine murder to the same meaning as assault.

If you are worried about that sort of thing, then you probably would be interested to know that it is 'just deserts' not 'just desserts'.

check out the desert2 noun form:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=deser t

n.

1. Something that is deserved or merited, especially a punishment. Often used in the plural: They got their just deserts when the scheme was finally uncovered.
2. The state or fact of deserving reward or punishment.

What does hatred of women have to do with interracial marriages?

Furthermore, the US government has already "drawn the line" on what companies can't discriminate against through the passing of several laws. This page on the EEOC's website outlines it pretty well.

You can't own a bleeding WORD!

Excellent point!

"That I use Movable Type which won't be effected by this."

Please learn the difference.

Excellent point!

"That I use Movable Type which won't be effected by this."

Please learn the difference.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=anymore

Rapper Ludacris is working on virtual dual processing? Doesn't really seem like his forte. ... Oh, you meant ludicrous . My mistake.

Maybe he means one butt cheek at a time.

discrete.
discreet.

Maybe he means one butt cheek at a time.

discrete.
discreet.

"Stealth has been a word used since the time of Shakespeare. How the heck does someone get to trademark a frickin' word?"

This page may clear up some of your questions.

By the way, I used Explorer to look up that page on Yahoo.

"Stealth has been a word used since the time of Shakespeare. How the heck does someone get to trademark a frickin' word?"

This page may clear up some of your questions.

By the way, I used Explorer to look up that page on Yahoo.

Once the word lands in the dictionary as a non-slang, uncapitalized word, it should lose all trademark value...

Asshole

sarcasm

Stupid

[I] just can't believe someone would write a story saying Slashdot is far right.

sarcasm

Curmudgeon

For example, is the name "Nederlands" considered to be a plural? :)

I've often wondered where the name "Netherlands" originated, and if it was just accidental that the word makes up two valid English words: "nether" and "lands".

We could argue about the merits of income tax versus sales tax; I worry about the implementation of a saes tax.

But if you insist on an income tax, it must be a progressive one. And no, a flat tax is not progressive. By definition a tax is only progressive if the rate increases as your income increases. A flat tax is not progressive.

Now the reason why a progressive income tax is essential to "fairness" is the very obvious fact that 25% of the income of a person barely making ends meat is much more significant -- read financially damaging -- than 25% of the income of a person who's biggest financial worry is whether they will be able to send all of their kids to Ivy League schools if they don't get scholarships. It is not "fair" at all to expect someone who can't afford medical care for their children to support society with the same contribution as a wealthy person.

Flat tax sounds good on paper, so long as that paper has no figures representing reality and the difficulties faced by the poor. But the fact is that a flat tax necessarily means that the burden of supporting society is placed more heavily on the poor. A progressive tax attempts to alleviate this by taking more from those who can afford more. I pay a greater percentage in taxes than a lot of people, yet I consider this to be imminently fair. That's just my opinion. It isn't my opinion that flat taxes place a greater burden on lower income families though.

It should be "supercede," not "supersede."

Bzzzt. Nope, "supersede" is spelt with '-sede', not '-cede' like 'precede'.

And we live in a plutocracy . Although those whose income is in the top 5% pay 50% of the income tax (collectively), the remainder still pay a higher percentage of their income to make up the remainder.

There are two other things to remember:

The Golden Rule: He|She who has the gold makes the rules.

Life is like a sh%t sandwich. The more bread you have, the less sh%t you have to eat.

"Natural selection" and "evolution" are not equal; neither is the first a subset of the second. The second can be a result of the first. It is the fact that these terms are not the same that lends relevance to their association. Evolution means gradual development or change. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=evolution

dictionary entry for speller

It is not :). It depends on a lot of things, but normally, if someone says "it is", they are putting the emphasis on the "is", not on the "it" (or in my example, the "is not", rather than the "it").

Well, yes. I was over-generalising a bit, but I'm using very formal in the sense of "relating to or involving outward form or structure", not really in the "suit and tie" sense. It's more precise language, most commonly used, as you mentioned, to emphasise the is, and therefore the truth, of your statement.

Of course, the fact that I used the word formal to mean two different things in the one paragraph didn't help anything, it must be getting late.

>>Should you decide to fast foward a bit into 18th century texts, and then along
>>to early 19th century, you'll find the language less grueling, yet still alien
>>enough to make the task more daunting than today's literature.

>Surely you meant to write: "more daunting then today's literature".

Surely YOU meant to not write at all.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=than
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=then

>>Should you decide to fast foward a bit into 18th century texts, and then along
>>to early 19th century, you'll find the language less grueling, yet still alien
>>enough to make the task more daunting than today's literature.

>Surely you meant to write: "more daunting then today's literature".

Surely YOU meant to not write at all.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=than
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=then

You may be interested to know that "literally" is shifting meaning--it no longer always means "exactly"; it can sometimes mean "I mean the statement intensely, although it is not an actual depiction." There is an interesting note on this phenomenon at dictionary.com

Are you sure?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=e.g.

This clearly supports you in it's first sets of definitions. However, if you read further down in the usage section, you'll find that it's been slowly evolving. It notes the usage of "gender" as a social and culture grouping, and sex as a strictly biological term is becoming more and more common. You'll notice that even in the dictionary that clearly labels it primarily as a grammatically term, still lists secondary usages that clearly match up with the usage above (3b being the easiest to identify).

This might all be the fear of being politically incorrect, and using the word sex. However, it'll probably end up being coming the wrong usage to use sex there instead of "gender" as some point in the future. Just like it's now considered improper to use gender netural pronouns in the singlular case. This link discusses it better. "They" was used as singluar pronoun in the ambigous gender cases. From reading the above link, it appears that "you" went through the same transitions.

Kirby

Or you could just simplify things by using viz. as a replacement for both i.e. and e.g.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=viz

I've almost gotten to the point where I consider a phrase like "makes its own gravy" to be written wrong because of the missing apostrophe, because it's so common -- even in advertising copy, for pete's sake.

its is correct.

reference: http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/ i/its.html

Q. What is the difference between its and it's?

A. Its is the possessive form of it.
It's is a contraction of it is or it has.

Examples:

It's a common mistake.
The boat has a hole in its hull.

The confusion arises from the dual function of the 's ending, which can indicate either possession or contraction, as in: Joe's hamburgers are the best (="The hamburgers which are Joe's -- that is, in that he makes them -- are the best"); Joe's going to have to buy some more patties soon (="Joe is going to have to buy some more patties soon"). However, 's is never used to indicate possession in pronouns. We do not write hi's (instead of his), for example.

Here is a test we can perform to determine whether to use it's or its: Replace it with his and see if the sentence still makes (grammatical) sense. His a common mistake does not make sense. The boat has a hole in his hull does make sense -- at least grammatically; of course boats are not boys, but we can pretend that they are for the sake of improving our spelling. The rule we shall apply, then, is this: If the sentence makes sense with his, which does not have an apostrophe, it is safe to replace it with its, which also does not have an apostrophe.

Check it out at http://www.m-w.com/.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=raised explicitly lists "raise children" as an example.

But you're still wrong. The definition of "pirate" is:

pirate Audio pronunciation of "pirate" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prt) n.

1. 1. One who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without commission from a sovereign nation.
   2. A ship used for this purpose.
2. One who preys on others; a plunderer.
3. One who makes use of or reproduces the work of another without authorization.
4. One that operates an unlicensed, illegal television or radio station.

You'll note that "making money" is not part of the definition. As well as it shouldn't be - I've heard the term applied to all copyright infringers since I heard the word, which, I guess, would go back to the early eighties. Most pirate radio stations, similarly, were strictly amatuer operations.

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.

Look up the definition of "framework":

framework Pronunciation Key (frmwûrk)
n.

1. A structure for supporting or enclosing something else, especially a skeletal support used as the basis for something being constructed.
2. An external work platform; a scaffold.
3. A fundamental structure, as for a written work.
4. A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality.

AJAX relies on the foundations of JavaScript, XML and the HTTP transport. You tie these three together through a little bit of JavaScript code, not very much at all. Definitions 1 and 4 very neatly describe AJAX as we already have it. Any kind of higher-level framework encapsulating this would be so thin and lightweight as to hardly be worth the effort of developing or learning. And where exactly are you getting the idea of abstracting GUI elements in AJAX? It's a communications paradigm.

Look, as far as I'm concerned, there isn't enough evidence of a danger to justify putting a giant ring in space.

And you're talking danger as in 'exposure or vulnerability to harm or risk' not danger as in 'a source or an instance of risk or peril' (definition). That there is a 'danger' of it happening does not mean that it is a 'danger' in itself.

Specifically, we don't have enough evidence to know of a danger posed by global warming and therefore we don't have enough evidence to put a giant ring into space.

That's because the word "Muslim" just means a follower of the religion of Islam. Look it up.

I Disagree. Greedy has nothing to do with what you want. Greedy is all about how much you want.

Newsforge appears to have it...

Newsforge appears to have it...

Newsforge appears to have it...

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=bartery

Probably not what you had in mind..

joke

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=eskimo

Usage Note: Eskimo has come under strong attack in recent years for its supposed offensiveness, and many Americans today either avoid this term or feel uneasy using it. It is widely known that Inuit, a term of ethnic pride, offers an acceptable alternative, but it is less well understood that Inuit cannot substitute for Eskimo in all cases, being restricted in usage to the Inuit-speaking peoples of Arctic Canada and parts of Greenland. In Alaska and Arctic Siberia, where Inuit is not spoken, the comparable terms are Inupiaq and Yupik, neither of which has gained as wide a currency in English as Inuit. While use of these terms is often preferable when speaking of the appropriate linguistic group, none of them can be used of the Eskimoan peoples as a whole; the only inclusive term remains Eskimo. The claim that Eskimo is offensive is based primarily on a popular but disputed etymology tracing its origin to an Abenaki word meaning "eaters of raw meat." Though modern linguists speculate that the term actually derives from a Montagnais word referring to the manner of lacing a snowshoe, the matter remains undecided, and meanwhile many English speakers have learned to perceive Eskimo as a derogatory term invented by unfriendly outsiders in scornful reference to their neighbors' unsophisticated eating habits. See Usage Note at Inuit.

Either is correct.

Either is correct.

Card Shark http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=card+shar k
Card Sharp http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=card%20sh arp

Card Shark http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=card+shar k
Card Sharp http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=card%20sh arp

Wiki
Dictionary

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=astroturf ing

Oh Wow, I never heard of that word before, but it definitely fits what he's doing. He's claiming to have performed a specific action in hopes that other people will imitate him. He's also trying to generate a perception of AMD which would be infectious to other people. An excellent and very cunning ploy to exploit people's imitative natures.

And there's my contribution to the anti-meme. An explanation of what astroturfing is goes further than just saying what its called.