Re: Please list all the Ada libraries you know

[Geoff <geoff@invalid.invalid>]

On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 11:34:21 -0800 (PST), Adam Beneschan
<adam@irvine.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, March 6, 2013 11:01:24 AM UTC-8, Niklas Holsti wrote:
>
>> So "sensible" has multiple meanings.
>
>You may be technically correct.  My usual source, m-w.com, also lists a number of similar meanings.  But I have to say that, in 52 years of speaking and reading (American) English, I have *never* seen or heard the word "sensible" used in that manner, or in any manner other than what's given in the 4th definition at m-w.com, "having, containing, or indicative of good sense or reason", or the 5th one.  The examples they give in the first three definitions sound like a foreign language to me.  Frankly, I'm surprised to seem them there at all.  Perhaps I'm the outlier here, and other English speakers have heard the word "sensible" used with one of those meanings fairly often.  If so, I'd be interested to hear from them.  But based on my own experience, if you use the word "sensible" like that, other people will not understand what you're talking about.  And being technically correct counts for little if you're not understood.  So I'm standing by what I said.  
>
>                            -- Adam

I have to disagree with Adam. The usage is valid in that context and I
understood the meaning immediately. 

As a native American English speaker and one who has read English
authors like H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan-Doyle, I can say that the
usage of sensible as a synonym of perceptible or noticeable is valid
but somewhat archaic, I think it found more usage in the 19th century
than in the 20th. 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sensible

M-W lists enough synonyms and related words like tangible or apparent
that it should have been understood to mean "discernable" or
noticeable.

Just my two cents worth.