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Microsoft Edits English
jbarr writes "An article in the 23-Oct-2000 issue of the New York Times (free reg blah blah blah) talks about how Microsoft has eliminated words from its thesaurus so as to "not suggest words that may have offensive uses or provide offensive definitions for any words". Entering a word like "idiot" yields no hits in Word 2000 unlike the numerous hits in Word 97." I don't think there's anything evil here, but it sure is funny.
Nothing evil here. Have you ever read 1984?
Restricting language is _very_ evil.
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pilchie
...does it suggest "Windows" as and alternative to "Linux"?
This space left intentionally blank.
Micro$oft is not only in bed w/ the PC makers; but they're also making PC themselves....
I believe that they have simply seeded the synonym algorithm for every "curse word" with a random value for the subscript of an array of every M$FT employee since the company's inception. Therefore, if you type in "f*ckhead", Steve Ballmer might be a suggested replacement. Similarly, "assh*le" is often times replaced by "William H. Gates" in the new Office XP. Just don't ask for a replacement for "naked clippy". ;-)
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Not that I think there's some grand conspiracy here, but it's a good quote.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Greetings friend citizen, the computer is your friend. Why do you want to use such words? Are you unhappy? **BzzRRRRtttt**
Some people really hate them registrations..
October 23, 2001
Bowdlerized by Microsoft
By MARK GOLDBLATT
I was hard at the grindstone, crusading against hypocrisy and chaos, armed with my laptop and Microsoft Word 2000. I'd just typed: "Only a fool would believe." But "fool" did not seem right. So I hit Shift-F7 to call up the thesaurus. The lone synonym that Word provided was a verb: trick.
Where were the nouns? Where was idiot? I typed "idiot," hit Shift-F7, and got the message "not found." Then I tried goon. Again, not found. No luck with ninny, nincompoop or numbskull. Or with nitwit, halfwit, dimwit or twit. Or dullard, dunce or dolt.
"Jerk" called up yank, jolt, tug and twitch. "Dummy" produced mannequin and copy -- still not what I was looking for.
So I phoned a friend who also uses Word and asked him to test the phenomenon. He typed "fool," hit Shift-F7 -- and was provided a hearty menu of synonyms that included not just idiot and ninny, but such exotics as dunderhead and ignoramus. We realized the difference: He was working with Word 97, not the Word 2000 I was using.
Concluding that I had found a glitch in the updated version of Microsoft Word, I decided to inform Microsoft. I called and asked to speak to Bill Gates, but was directed to a cheerful person named Tim.
Tim transferred me to Kate, also cheerful, who promised to look into the matter. Several days later, Kate sent me an e-mail message with an explanation: "Microsoft's approach regarding the spell checker dictionary and thesaurus is to not suggest words that may have offensive uses or provide offensive definitions for any words. The dictionary and spell checker is updated with each release of Office to ensure that the tools reflect current social and cultural environments."
Was the world's foremost software designer worried about offending dullards, dunces and dolts? Are there actually people out there who identify themselves that way? Even if so, you wouldn't think they'd represent Microsoft's target demographic. More troubling, if an acute sensitivity to people's feelings had winnowed down Word 2000's thesaurus options, what changes loomed in the future? Word 2000 already changes "thier" to "their" as I type. Would the next generation evaporate "moron" from the screen the moment it appeared?
But maybe this isn't oversensitivity. Maybe it is what postmodernists call erasure: since language creates reality, if we erase every noun connoting below-average intelligence, the world instantly becomes a smarter place.
Now, if only Microsoft would erase "hypocrisy" and "chaos" . . . .
Mark Goldblatt, who teaches writing at the Fashion Institute of Technology, writes frequently about politics. He is the author of the forthcoming "Africa Speaks," a novel.
From an unedited thesaurus:
Idiot [noun]: ass, fool, imbecile, jackass, mooncalf, moron, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, simple, simpleton, softhead, tomfool. Informal: dope, gander, goose. Slang: cretin, ding-dong, dip, goof, jerk, nerd, schmo, schmuck, turkey
Slashdot: News for Idiots. Stuff that matters.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
"Was the world's foremost software designer worried about offending dullards, dunces and dolts? Are there actually people out there who identify themselves that way? Even if so, you wouldn't think they'd represent Microsoft's target demographic."
You wouldn't?
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
You're not allowed to use MS products to criticise Microsoft, and extensive market research determined that the most common use of these terms was in relation to Microsoft and Bill Gates.
Before:
I can't for the life of me understand why Microsofts monopoly still exists.
After:
I shall throw down my life for the glory of Microsoft empires existance!
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
What about other phrases, such as Civil Rights, or Consumer Rights? How about the word Profits, since MS is certainly not worrying about those any more?
This is just another case of where being Politically Correct drives folks to the point of insanity.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
All those book authors who write books using MS Word 2000 are no longer able to write books titled: "XYZ for Dummies/idiots".
For once, MS has done the right thing.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
Is this their solution to bloatware? They sole purpose of a thesaurus is to enhance one's vocabulary not limit it. What's next on their agenda, making it impossible to change the desktop colours unless they are coordinated? Is something in the works with Martha Stewart?
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
This has got to be good ammunition which the DOJ and the state Attorney Generals can use. What a wonderful way to describe how Microsoft can single-handledly extend it's monopoly from office products into, stagger, something truley outstanding -- a monopoly on the definition of the English language. If Microsoft can do this with English, imagine what I can do to anything else it desires...
*frightened, smiling broadly and nodding head at monitor*
I don't know about you. but i like the fact that someone has cleaned up the language a bit. what with all the rudeness i see on television. maybe if the taliban had a nice big brother to look into what they were doing and reading, well there wouldn't be so much of this unpleasentness in euroasia.
I feel liberated by not having to think so much about what is happening with the prolitarians and haveing someone doing my thinking for me. Civil liberties and freedom of speech only confuse people and get them into trouble...
When I purchased my copy of XP it came with a webcam/dongle with the instructions, "Brother Bill wants to watch you watching XP".
{end sarcasm}
jesus h knickers... not that Apple is the peoples computer, but when they made the commercial of that chick whipping the hammer at the "telescreen" they eluded it was IBM that was the vile BB.
I hope they take this to more absurd extremes actually, i really want to see the audacity get silly. Remember, Joe Macarthy would have been called a hero if it wasn't for Roy Cohne to get so ridiculous that the nation would no longer tolerate them.
Not only that, a flaw the average Joe can easily grasp. All you have to say is, "StarOffice (or other OSS product you proselytize) has a full English dictionary and thesaurus. Unlike Microsoft Word."
Anyone else think this will matter to people who have Real Work (tm) to do?
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
"""The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or 'This field is free from weeds'. It could not be used in its old sense of ' politically free' or 'intellectually free' since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless."""
m l
Steve Ballmer and others at Microsoft have tried to "redefine" the GNU Free software licence as a "cancer".
From
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/19396.ht
"""Microsoft CEO and incontinent over-stater of facts Steve Ballmer said that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches,"""
This is not a good idea, for at least two reasons that strike me as being so obvious I can't believe the marketing idio..er..moro..um..people at Microsoft didn't consider it.
Firstly, where's the accountability? Who's making the decision about which words to omit, and which to include? Do we really want to trust Microsoft to make decisions on our behalf regarding our use of language? Not really. This is not going to do much to raise trust in MS, although it probably won't do much to lower it either. It's a small enough fringe issue that most people will never know, which is part of why it's dangerous.
Second, there's the issue of market appeal. Office is supposed to be a writing (etc) tool for professionals. But writing professionals _need_ tools such as thesauri, dictionaries and the like, and we rely on them to be comprehensive. A thesaurus that gives me only a limited number of options is of very limited worth. Sometimes I need to use words that some people might find offensive.
This strikes me as an absurd move on the part of Microsoft; they're dabbling in an area where they have no expertise, making decisions for which they are unqualified. It's not like they would have got any criticism for leaving un-PC terms in the damn thesaurus. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
LANGUAGE, n.
The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.
Perfectly in character for Msft.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
In todays economy they are just tryint to save employees by cutting back on words intstead. They had to decite what words to no longer employ and they decided that hateful words are the ones that had to go. They are just saving jobs. :)
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
This is why this is important - on my copy of Office I get the following:
radical
fanatic
activist
revolutionary
rebel
moderate (Antonym)
and this is correct ( although it might be noted it excludes state terrorism ). What will Word 2002 do I wonder, will all words that mean activist and fanatic be replaced by 'criminal','anti-American' and all the rest ?
Nobody is forced to use M$ software. It's 1984 if we lose choice entirely. If people want to use such limited and biased word processors, it's their choice. But I guess 10^n flies can't be wrong...
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
This has got to be good ammunition which the DOJ and the state Attorney Generals can use.
Actually, no. It just shows that in a free world a business can modify its product as it sees fit. MS haven't modified English (well, American actually.. but lets not go there), they've modified a set of bytes that makes up the 'dictionary' included in their Office product. They haven't made it illegal to use these words. Don't be so melodramatic.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
I've also noticed that the general quality of the Office 2000 thesaurus in general to be absolutely different from 97's. The Office 97 thesaurus is much better in my experience, but for some words, 2000 is better! It's a pain in the neck.
For example, the word "emptiness."
Office 2000 gives the meanings "bareness" and "meaninglessness." Office 97 gives the meaning "void." (Each of these meanings has a list of synonyms associated with them.) There is absolutely no common ground between these two versions. It would make sense if Office 2000 would have all three, but that would make too much sense, wouldn't it?
I don't have Office XP (no new features, bloody licensing, etc) so I can't comment on the quality of the thesaurus in there.
I'm seriously thinking about trying to shoehorn in the 97 thesaurus into 2000 to see what happens.
Ian
I remember seeing that commercial, from what I understand, the ONE time it was played.
.1 already, and from what I can see, they've had no advertising geared toward the general public. Maybe it's time to dust off the old hammer commercial. From what I remember, it shouldn't be too tough to retouch the droning geezer into enough of a charicature of Gates to be recognizable, yet not too close so they can avoid a lawsuit.
It seems just a little odd that OS/X is to
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
So what? Americans have been editing the English language for centuries now! :)
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
* Monopoly
* Competition
* Streamlined (as in code)
* Stability
* Useability
* Cheesy poofs
(oh relax, the above is a joke)
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Really, who's deciding what's "offensive"? *I* didn't complain that this word processor enabled me or someone else to type "bad things", why should I have to suffer for it?
While this only applies in the theoretical world where I use Word and don't have an adequate vocabulary, I do have to suport MS Office for our coporate dullards who don't understand that other programs are actually *easier* to use and produce more portable docs. I'd like them to have the ability to select alternative ways of stating that "our sys admin is an arsehole", but without a complete thesaurus, how will they be able to do that? They'll have to go on and on calling me "arsehole", and the lack of variety will make me a Sad Panda(TM).
Microsoft's reply, from the article:
"Microsoft's approach regarding the spell checker dictionary and thesaurus is to not suggest words that may have offensive uses or provide offensive definitions for any words. The dictionary and spell checker is updated with each release of Office to ensure that the tools reflect current social and cultural environments."
Now there's a scary precedent! It's hard enough to come up with a consistent view of what's offensive. What's fine by me might be offensive to my neighbor. And when you are forced to "reflect current social and cultural environments", making sure you offend no one in those environments, you wind up with a lowest-common denominator effect. It's like the difference between broadcast TV and HBO. HBO can show "The Sopranos" but broadcast TV cannot without offending the advertisers who in turn don't want to offend the "current social environment" of the lowest-common denominator.
Fortunately, this is merely one product from one company, and is not yet the actual dictionary. Unfortunately, this one product totally dominates the marketplace. Scarily, Microsoft also makes a dictionary...
________________
Private Essayist
Yes, that one stings. Well, not me, beacuse I sure as fuck didn't OK the destruction of an entire city (or two, but who keeps track?).
Which reminds me how I find it funny that Moron Boy (GWB in case you aren't aware...) and others compare this to the attack on Perl Harbor. But Perl Harbor was a focused attack on military targets. But Hiroshima was US doing it, so we don't want to make comparisons to that...
The enemies of Democracy are
Remember the incident with the monkey bars?
One of the hits seaching for monkey was this picture of monkey bars, featuring a black family playing with them. This got Microsoft sued for racism.
-------------
Microsoft changes "Windows Default" colors from Blue to Green
They Should be Broken UP! (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Monopoly Hunter (billissatan 'at' hushmail.com) on 7:47 Friday 26 October 2001
This is exaclty the reason that the DOJ should step in an break them up. By changing the default WinBlows color scheme they, because of their desktop monopoly, effectivly eliminating the color Blue from existance. Now, when I wake up in the morning to watch the sunrise, no longer will I see a beautiful blue sky, but some ugly green piece of crap sky the Micro$losh has forced upon us. Don't let this happen -- call your local representative NOW and inform them of what Micro$loth is trying to do to the American people.
--------------
Not to diminish any of the crap that Microsoft has done and continues to get away with, but I we start ranting and raving about every little change that they make, then nobody is going to listen.
the "archive" in place of the www trick no longer works, and IIRC neither does the slashdot2001 (was that the login/pass?).
At any rate this quote made me smile:
We realized the difference: He was working with Word 97, not the Word 2000 I was using.
Hence the saying "Less is more".
I wonder if you typed that phrase into word 2000/XP if it would suggest "you should upgrade, then".
Typing in Thesaurus/dictionary.microsoft.com into future version of word will say "no suggestions" but, by the same token, typing in Thesaurus/dictionary.slasdot.org will say "not found".
Heh, not to worry tho, this comment and others like it will be modded into oblivion because they are funny, but the current usage for funny is "overrated"...
Yeah, I'm being funny/sarcastic (I need other suggestions...damn, I've got word 2000 on this box), yeah, I'm burning off Karma cause I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't...
If you are on thin ice, you may as well dance (tappity, tappity, tappity....)
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Don't tell me that in the same amount of time there isn't hundreds of package updates for any given Linux distro.
sure it is.
but when I install Debian today it doesn't install a 2 month old version, but downloads the latest release straight from the debian servers.
in contrast, the windows XP version in the shops right now is 2 months out of date.
why isn't microsoft providing a network install, so I can install the latest version ?
Microsoft's dictionary does not include the many and varied members of the animal kingdom whose names begin with "Nigger". They apply a proscriptive definition rather than descriptive (they tell you what you should think about a word, not what it means) in several cases.
If I put in words into a Thesaurus, yes I would expect to get words that could be considered offensive, hell have a "parent filter" on the thing if you want but don't start ruling out words you don't like. This is a terrible thing, many words that are offensive in the US might not be in the UK, and vice versa.
An example....
Fanny means "bottom" or "ass" in the US
Fanny means "Vagina" in the UK
Ban this because is _some_ countries it could be offensive, or to certain groups it might be ?
Well in that case I declare that in my version of English the words "Operating", "System", "Windows" and "Traffic light" are deeply offensive. My personal religious cult also are deeply offended by all synonmys of the word "food".
Censoring words is the first step in censoring sentences.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The issue here is really the implications of a corporate, lowest-common-denominator, approach as applied to the single most widely used word processing tool. Can you still use a *shudder* hard copy thesaurus as you write, absolutely. How many people do so? So when a company guts a tool that is widely used to add depth and breadth to countless users prose, it does have bad implications.
The written word is a profoundly powerful tool. This move potentially removes a means for many to "find their voice," which is to say, to find the word that *truly* voices their intent. VI Lenin said the following about the power of language, it is, I think, apropos:
Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should a man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?
I remember the day when you bought a dictionary/thesaurus as a third party add on for the word processor of your choice. I stopped buying them when those that were included were as strong as what I could get elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to rethink that decision.
/rootrot
I agree with you for the most part, removing these words isn't nearly the same as censorship, but...
Given the choice, I really would like my thesaurus to come up with the full selection of words. If I type in "Black" it should produce "African", "nigger", "negro", "colored", etc. with a note explaining the connotation of each word. The thesaurus isn't there to tell me what I mean, it's there to help me find the word that matches what I'd like to say.
In some contexts it's actually very important. A foreigner may not know which words are derogatory and which aren't (it's pretty arbitrary, after all). A good thesaurus can be a life saver in such cases.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Well, if those words were part of an established dictionary, then yes, a proper thesarus should suggest those words. Duh.
Just checked Webster's dictionary.com: kike, spic and nigger are all there.
They aren't in Roget's Thesaurus though. Is Roget's not a "proper" thesaurus? If it isn't, I don't know what is.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I would argue that this is evil. Not in the 1984/newspeak sense described by some, since it's not really an attempt to control people via language, it's a classic corporate lawyer thing to do. Corporate lawyers get paid to think of all the ways that companies can get into trouble and prevent it. We have seen in the past, when word processors offer stupid [idiotic, moronic, asinine] suggestions for word replacements, some smart-assed journalist writes a story and the company looks bad. Clearly, from the lawyers point of view, the best solution is to simply eliminate the possibility altogether.
If you've worked at a large corporation, you'll often discover that many of the inanities of corporate life arise not from pointy-haired bosses directly, but from "guidelines" that were created and put into place by PHBs in consultation with risk-averse lawyers. One thing this shows is that Microsoft is actually becoming IBM, the thing it has always feared and proof that it too will eventually become a dinosaur and die of irrelevance.
The reason that this is evil, however, is that until Microsoft dies, they are still a monopoly, and most non-technicalusers are not aware of choices other than Windows, Word, Excel, etc. on the desktop. Or, just as likely, I need to use them for compatibility with others. Therefore, these people are now going to find that computers and technology are less useful to them. There's no reason I should have to have a paper dictionary and thesarus by my desk, but if I use Word, it appears that I will have to anyway. That makes the computer less useful and is therefor evil.
Microsoft has simply determined that, if you need to use a computer thesaurus to insult someone, you're better off not bothering, or just using the words you can come up with.
They eliminate "potentially offensive" words like "idiot" in case somebody tries to use Word2000 write a review of a Microsoft product.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Ironically, Ultraviolet is the internal code name for one of the not-yet-released features of .NET.
.NET team about UV. And, no, I can't tell you which one -- you're not cleared to hear about unreleased products.)
(No, I'm not joking. It's bothered me since the first time that my group dealt with the
The Computer is your friend. Trust the Computer. Keep watch for traitors.
Actually, that sounds about right...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Actually it was probably done to AVOID litigation. Remeber the black people on the "monkey bars" incident? When random searches done by a search engine turn up unfortunate results that humans then interpret as being evil, lawsuits emerge :( So they may now be trying to actually catch such things before they offend any one. It sucks, but people suck worse when they can't tell the difference between accidental and purposeful offense and immediately whip out their lawyers from their hip pockets.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Touche.
/. (the only words that were mine were 'this article on') I've been modded down as "overrated/troll/flambait/offtopic" ever since.
/. mod system/government/monopoly/(insert topic) can and *will be/has been/is being" abused.
/. is building a "community" of sorts that is being subverted.
/. is losing its charm because of such abuse.
Nice comback, BTW, 'zilla.
Yeah, I was being smarmy/sarcastic, but my point was illustrated several times via normal posts, rants/raves and the like, that ever since posting a story that got "spin doctored" via
There is that, and my former "win95 had "start me up", Win XP needs "run like hell"...or as a macintosh web writer said "oops, I did it again".
My over all point was that the
It saddens me that
Like the line from Star Trek TNG, "when subersion is suspected, it is never real, but when subversion is real it is almost never suspected" --Picard.
My point being that control comes in many forms from something innocous as "while your up" to modding people down not because what they said is a troll/flamebait/offtopic/overrated but because of their nicname/persona and
How does it manifest itself? Well, sooner or later I'll prolly wind up posting as an AC, but I doubt I will because *if* i know or think I am right I don't back down. I've swayed people that way, and gotten my ass kicked a few times because of it.
Or maybe stop posting at all...would anyone notice? I doubt it, but if the abuse continues, and it will, more people might do the same.
Same applies to Microsoft as well as slashdot, but the tolerance varies.
Oh well, going to get modded down no matter what I do (just watch) and it *still* has not shut me up...but on the other hand, I'm typing this in Netscape and not Word 2000.
--note: all spelling and grammar mistakes are my own, if you take issue with them, then copy and past the phrase "bite me" into Word 2000/XP and pull up the thesaurs for a translation.
La, la, laaaaa.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
> There are also two more "wingdings" fonts,
> WingDings 2 and WingDings 3, but I wouldn't know
> how to describe some of the symbols that come up
> for those.
So you're saying that when you type letters using WingDings 2 and 3, you get an image that is unspeakable?
My God, it's worse than we thought!
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
How difficult is it to write a replacement thesaurus/spell checker? Does Microsoft lock customers into Encarta's definitions/spellings?
Of course, back in the dark ages, grammar checkers, thesauri, and even spell checkers were third party add ons.
This is all part of the effort to end the information anarchy. You see, when people know to much they don't always do what you want them too. For this reason, independent publications will have to stop so that we can be sure of what the truth is. All of these confilicting opinions are just too much for the average person to sort out.
With M$ in control, everything will be easier and more fun.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Am I the only one who remembers a while back when a certain african american gentelman "accidently" mispelled Niger (adding an extra 'g') and sued Microsoft over the distress this event caused him? So far as I know his case was thrown out, I haven't been inclined to look for an old news story. But now Microsoft will never have to worry about this kind of thing again, and won't need to worry about someone hitting lawsuit lotto jackpot on their dime (at least as far as this story is concerned).
Every now and then, being well read refers to the newspapers in your basement and not the books on your shelf.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Correct. And that is why it should be written Unix, not UNIX.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Last year, when the Microsoft cafeterias decided to remove alfalfa sprouts from their sandwich bar, they CLAIMED it was due to risk of e. coli. At that time I believed them, but now that I am no longer exposed to the Gas Of Obedience pumped through their air conditioning systems I know that it was part of their plan to control the world. Microsoft's social engineering team no doubt recognized that eating alfalfa sprouts instead of good old iceberg lettuce in a sandwich is the first step on the road to being a tree-hugging, tofu-munching, freeware-trafficking Windows hacking, hippie-ass communist faggot.
Having squashed the alfalfa sprout menace, their obvious next step would be to expunge (remove, extract, eliminate, cleanse) words such as "idiot" from the thesaurus.
In this darkly ominous display of Big Brother arrogance, they have apparently granted themselves, the publishers of a reference work, the right to edit it as they see fit, without submitting it for peer review to everybody in the world who speaks English and might have an issue with it. Those bastards.
If one can't say anything bad, one can't say anything bad about Microsoft.
I find it flabbergasting that no one speaks up when the pushers of censorship sneak in through the back door when they say "Oh, well we don't want to offend anyone now do we?" The plain fact is that you can either have freedom of expression, or the freedom to not be offended. You can't have both. So the next time someone wants you to change your language and utilize euphemisms in place of the actual words you mean, tell them to go to hell because they are an enemy of our constitutional rights.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
The Modern Language Association (MLA) announces its new desktop operating system...
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
This is just plain ridiculous. They steamroll ahead with their monopoly tactics, welding everything they can think of into their OS to kill the competit^H^H^H promote the user experience, but THIS is where they try so hard to play nice and be P.C., it crosses the line into stupidity?
They sure weren't afraid to offend people in 1994, when Bookshelf happily defined such words as "motherfucker," and even provided a recording of someone saying it, lest I be unsure of the pronunciation.
~Philly
Any dictionary or thesaurus can do nothing more than describe how launguage IS used. They do not dictate how it OUGHT to be used. Mirosoft's product, therefore, is not a dictionary or a thesaurus. It is a religious or political work, and ought to be advertised as such.
If the thesaurus says that a synonym for "Western" is "aryan" or "white", and that a synonym for "Indian" is "man-eater" or "savage", that is because people actually use these words synonymously. To report a fact is not the same as to advocate any circumstances that make it factual. To criticize the publishers of dictionaries and thesauri for being politically incorrect, or for offending people, is just the same as saying that because the NYT published a photo of the WTC collapsing, they support terrorism. Clearly absurd.
Language is what we make of it, but we seem not to want to be told about the ugly parts we have made.
Edith Keeler Must Die
and the debian cd's from compUSA have all the updates as of this second?
No, but the CD install is not the usual way of installing Debian, the usual and most used way of installing Debian is the internet install.
the CD install is the only way to install win XP. microsoft should at least update the version in the shops when a new patch comes out.
I get three or four emails per week telling me about all the patches for redhat.
I don't use redhat, I prefer Debian, I never get mailings about patches, I run an apt-get upgrade daily which ensures me I always have the latest and most up-to-date versions of every piece of software installed on my machine
but we need a better way to update things.
you mean something like "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade", done!.
Nugatory means: Of little or no importance; trifling.
It was also Word of the Day on Sept 5, 2000.
There's nothing funny about censorship. Most companies publishing a thesauraus would want to make the damned thing accurate.
I always use online resources for dictionaries, thesaurus, spelling. That way you know the stuff is most up to date (or at least probably better than your local database!).
Another good resource is wordnet:
http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/
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My God, Micrsoft IS Big Brother. (If you don't understand, its time to reread Orwell's classic science fiction novel 1984.)
Try "anti-trust." If it doesn't produce an entry then I'd definately call this double-plus ungood.
BSD is a free license.
:)
GPL is not
No one at microsoft says "Linux is distributed under the cancer license". Microsoft is of the opinion that the GPL does have a cancerous effect - the viral nature that everyone understands so well.
GPL may be a free license for end users. It is not a free license for software developers - theres quite a lot you ahve to be willing to give up in order to use GPL. And the notion that GPL gives you "so much" in exchange is ridiculous.
RMS et al were the ORIGINAL people making fuss over the word "Free". How can you fault MS for word redefinition when there exists http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
It's a whole page talkinga bout the "correct definition" of "free software".
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Is Microsoft actually REMOVING words from the common lexicon. Try typing in 'fora', which is the proper pluralization of 'forum' ('forums' is also acceptable). Microsoft will just auto-correct your word to 'for a'. How annoying is that? They are dumbing down the english language, who gave them that authority?
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
This thing isn't exclusive to MS or even the tech world, though. A non-computer-related example: My (ex-)girlfriend and I used to be pretty serious about playing Scrabble. In order to have a standard reference we could use to resolve challenges, we got a copy of the Official Scrabble Dictionary. To our dismay, we discovered that the dictionary had a similar policy: if a word might be considered profane or offensive, it's omitted. Never mind that "sh!t" is a perfectly good English word; it's not in there. We were rather annoyed by this, because it renders the dictionary useless for its intended purpose of arbitrating legitimate and illegitimate plays. (Sure, nobody would challenge "sh!t", which is clearly a word, but what about "sh!t-faced" -- does that have a hyphen, making it illegal, or not, making it a legal play?)
By the way, IIRC there was a version of the FrameMaker publishing software about a decade ago in which, if you ran the term "Quark Xpress" through the spell-checker, the suggested correction was "FrameMaker". Also, I think there was a version of WinWord in which the suggested correction for "zzzzzz" (forgot how many z's) was "sex", which was always good for a laugh.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
This is proof that in the case of Microsoft, it is the company and not the users.
In the case of slashdot it is not the companyit is the users/moderators
ah, the saying "never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity".
In the words of TWR (every slashdot moderator cloud has a silver lining)
"go ahead, mod me down, you are still an idiot"
so, go ahead, mod me down, you are still a vindictive idiot.
Shit, I was being insightful to up my karma, and FYI modding me down does not up yours.
(hidden message, what hidden message)
Slashdot moderators prove, once again, no good deed goes unpunished.
Go ahead and mod me down, you're going to do it anyway and prove TWR correct, again, and again.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
I mispell "idiat"? How am I suposed to corect meself?
No sig for you.
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In fact, I remember reading about a lawsuit several years ago in which a black man sued Microsoft because he used the Office Clipart library to search for the word "monkey", and the library returned a picture of two black children climbing on monkey bars. He claimed that Microsoft was implying that black children were monkeys when, in fact, the picture had just been linked to the word "monkey" due to the fact that it contained "monkey bars".
Enough said.
Do you like German cars?
God knows it equates to some offensive words for me.
This tagline is umop apisdn.
I never said MS products were free. Far from it.
My point was that the GPL means YOU are free to do what you like with it.
It's not free for MS to do whatever _it_ likes with the software. Infact, the GPL is utterly incompatible with serious commercial software development. And RMS redefined "free" for that explicit purpose. So its foolhardy to be upset with MS about "redefining" words. You picked about the worst possible example of showing how GPL/GNU is "right" and MS is "wrong"
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.