Although I most definitely agree with using style guides for various publications, enforcing a prescriptive notion of proper usage on the general English-speaking population is a futile endeavour. The English language has had major influences from other languages such as German and French in the past and is currently undergoing a revolutionary evolution due to modern communications. As one of the most human of all activities, learning language is what each of us does every day of our lives. If you hear a word you don't understand just once, the chances of you recalling it later are minimal. But if you start hearing that word very, very often in specific circumstances, it will only be a matter of time before you start using it yourself in just those circumstances. After all, you want to be understood by others and this is the way we do it. And English no longer belongs exclusively to native speakers nor is it always native speakers contributing to the language. This is typically referred to as Globish or World English. Just one example: Ever use the expression "Thanks in advance"? Up to about 20 years ago I had never heard or seen this used by native speakers, only by students of mine in English correspondence courses when attempting to write "Danke im Voraus", which back then was always "Thank you for your attention and I look forward to hearing from you soon." But Germans starting writing "Thanks in advance" on faxes and e-mails sent across the world and it was only a matter of time before it became a perfectly acceptable and widely used expression in English, also used by native speakers. IMHO, language is all about the frequency of occurrence and statistical probabilities in distinct contexts. If you want to be understood, you should always follow a descriptive - not a prescriptive - grammar.
Valid statistics should be based on facts and these are hard to gather in the browser market simply because most non-IE browsers have to identify themselves as the MS product in order to gain access to many web sites. The default for Opera is MS IE. Same for OmniWeb and many other popular browsers for the Mac platform. In fact, there is such a browser spoofing feature in just about every browser I know, including Safari, OmniWeb, Opera, iCab, etc.
So, what is being counted as MS IE may not really be IE. I'm sure their real numbers are much, much lower.
He might not be an idiot, but simply ignorant of the situation. The idiot is the one who can't tell the difference. I was in the U.S. Peace Corps in Nepal for 2.5 years (1983-1986), so I guess I'm more clued in on the facts.
Nepal features a series of rivers flowing from north to south in the deepest valleys in the world and is a net exporter of hydroelectric power. Their main problem is not producing power for export (just running those power lines straight down the river valleys to India), it's in distributing it across their own mountainous country.
This is vital to accomplish quickly before the remaining forests are depleted and dependence on kerosene for cooking and lighting becomes the norm. We all know that what dependency on fossil fuels can mean.
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Although I most definitely agree with using style guides for various publications, enforcing a prescriptive notion of proper usage on the general English-speaking population is a futile endeavour. The English language has had major influences from other languages such as German and French in the past and is currently undergoing a revolutionary evolution due to modern communications. As one of the most human of all activities, learning language is what each of us does every day of our lives. If you hear a word you don't understand just once, the chances of you recalling it later are minimal. But if you start hearing that word very, very often in specific circumstances, it will only be a matter of time before you start using it yourself in just those circumstances. After all, you want to be understood by others and this is the way we do it. And English no longer belongs exclusively to native speakers nor is it always native speakers contributing to the language. This is typically referred to as Globish or World English. Just one example: Ever use the expression "Thanks in advance"? Up to about 20 years ago I had never heard or seen this used by native speakers, only by students of mine in English correspondence courses when attempting to write "Danke im Voraus", which back then was always "Thank you for your attention and I look forward to hearing from you soon." But Germans starting writing "Thanks in advance" on faxes and e-mails sent across the world and it was only a matter of time before it became a perfectly acceptable and widely used expression in English, also used by native speakers. IMHO, language is all about the frequency of occurrence and statistical probabilities in distinct contexts. If you want to be understood, you should always follow a descriptive - not a prescriptive - grammar.
...and Apple Computers, which may have the power to make the change, is listening... and Apple *c*omputers, [...], *are* listening
Valid statistics should be based on facts and these are hard to gather in the browser market simply because most non-IE browsers have to identify themselves as the MS product in order to gain access to many web sites. The default for Opera is MS IE. Same for OmniWeb and many other popular browsers for the Mac platform. In fact, there is such a browser spoofing feature in just about every browser I know, including Safari, OmniWeb, Opera, iCab, etc.
So, what is being counted as MS IE may not really be IE. I'm sure their real numbers are much, much lower.
He might not be an idiot, but simply ignorant of the situation. The idiot is the one who can't tell the difference. I was in the U.S. Peace Corps in Nepal for 2.5 years (1983-1986), so I guess I'm more clued in on the facts. Nepal features a series of rivers flowing from north to south in the deepest valleys in the world and is a net exporter of hydroelectric power. Their main problem is not producing power for export (just running those power lines straight down the river valleys to India), it's in distributing it across their own mountainous country. This is vital to accomplish quickly before the remaining forests are depleted and dependence on kerosene for cooking and lighting becomes the norm. We all know that what dependency on fossil fuels can mean.