Giant Microwave Turns Plastic Back to Oil

An anonymous reader writes "From the newscientist article: "Key to GRC's process is a machine that uses 1200 different frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific hydrocarbon materials. As the material is zapped at the appropriate wavelength, part of the hydrocarbons that make up the plastic and rubber in the material are broken down into diesel oil and combustible gas.""

Comments

Spelling should reflect the pronunciation

[Colin Smith]

It shouldn't define it.

The problem with english is that spelling is completely illogical, fixed and used to define the pronunciation of a word. It leaves huge ambiguity over the pronunciation of words which you are unfamiliar with. Every child has to deal with this bullshit as they are indoctrinated at school.

In other languages, there isn't such a problem. The letters have specific sounds and the spelling can be used to reconstruct the pronunciation of the words. See a new word in German for example, you can pronounce it pretty much correctly without having heard someone speak it first.

Re:Spelling should reflect the pronunciation

[Colin Smith]

Nah. They change the word to fit their rather bizarre grammar and spelling. Germanise it. Unlike the French, who instead promptly riot, claim it's[1] cultural imperialism and simply refuse to speak the word which has no name.

[1] Oh yeah. Then there's the apostrophe wars. I forgot about that aspect of English. Oh, and I before E except after C. I still hear that in my head every time I see the word "received". WTF were they thinking.

Re:Spelling should reflect the pronunciation

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason for pronouncing "giga-" with the soft initial g is because the metric system is French in origin.

Not that this makes it right... it's really a Frenchified way of pronouncing the Greek root (), which (if I'm not mistaken) would be pronounced in both classical and modern Greek with a hard initial g.

Personally, I pronounce it with the soft g... not for any particular reason though, except perhaps to cultivate some eccentricities If you're a scientist, it's always useful to have a collection of eccentricities.

Re:Spelling should reflect the pronunciation

[tehdaemon]

In many cases the spelling does indeed reflect the pronunciation - or rather the way it used to be pronounced.

Quick example : food

Two vowels together, should be a long o, right? Yep, that is how it was, but it isn't any more.

Question for you, since pronunciations change, should spelling change too?

T

Re:Spelling should reflect the pronunciation

[ajs318]

English has borrowed words from the languages of every other nation that either invaded, or has been invaded by, Britain throughout all of history. And, of course, all these people had their own peculiar spelling rules (the Spaniards even started a civil war over how to pronounce the letter "J". The "ch-as-in-loch" faction won and promptly revised everything to make it look as though it had always been that way. This intensely annoyed the "zh" and "y" factions, who still occasionally lob the odd bomb).

English also has apparently many more words than the languages of neighbouring countries. This is because we have assimilated words for the same thing from different languages, and then assigned subtly different meanings to them. For instance, in most languages, the word for an animal and the meat that comes from it is the same. But in Feudal times in England, the peasants (who spoke the Germanic-derived Anglo-Saxon language) were breeding animals which ended up on the tables of the aristocracy, who were speaking the French-derived Norman language. On the other hand, English relies heavily on pronouns and auxiliary verbs rather than using inflection (the exceptions being the third-person singular present tense, which takes "-s" or "-es", the past tense which usually takes "-ed", the past participle which usually takes "ed" and the present participle which takes "-ing".) The present participle can also be used as a gerund; however, there is little merit in explaining such things. Fully conjugating a verb in English -- except "be" and "have" which are highly irregular (except in the South West, where they say "I be [or rather, Oi be], you be, he/she/it be, we be, you be, they be), but that is the case in most languages; indeed, any race in whose language the verb "to be" is regular are intrinsically untrustworthy -- requires only four or five different words (not including the pronouns and auxiliary verbs, which are shared). However, for the purpose of counting vocabulary, inflected languages consider all inflections as being the same word.

And you really should pity the French: they have to use inflection and pronouns (je suis, tu es, il/elle est, nous sommes, vous êtes et ils/elles sont) whereas in Spain they manage with just soy, eres, es, somos, sois y son respectively. Of course they do have pronouns, they just aren't usually necessary and are just used emphatically; for instance, "yo te amo" as opposed to just "te amo" means more like "It is me who loves you".

Because that is the correct pronunciation...

[msauve]

the SI prefix "giga" come from the same root as "gigantic." Just as someone would sound like a rube if they said "Look at that gig-antic tree," so to those who say "gig-a-byte" instead of the proper "jiga-byte."

Re:Because that is the correct pronunciation...

[mwvdlee]

"gigabyte" comes from "giga" and "byte"... what's a "ntic"?

Re:Spelling doesn't have to reflect the pronunciat

[CastrTroy]

One thing I find with English speaking people, is that they don't care so much about the pronunciation, or even if you use the correct grammar. Not that it doesn't matter, but that they are more tolerant of others who have less of a grasp of the language. One example. I was sending out a fax from a convenience store (in Ontario), and the clerk only knew French (talk about bad service). Anyway, I asked if I could borrow a pen and used the work "stylo" which is the word I've always used. She corrected me and said "plume", even though "stylo" is a perfectly cromulent word. I encounter stuff like this all the time with French people. If you don't use the correct (or expected) word, pronunciation, or grammar for what you're trying to say, then they act like they don't understand you, and even sometimes laugh about how badly you speak. Maybe it's just because I live in Canada an we are used to people who are speaking English as a second or third language, but I've never seen that kind of attitude from any english speaking person.