From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,577df5d4a0e88785 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2000-12-14 07:08:49 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!newsfeeds.bigpond.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3A38E21D.2FFE8F6@bigpond.com> From: Graeme Organization: ... X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: American English (was: Bad coding standards) References: <91adsb$ipp$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <3A38D6F6.48AB736@bton.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 02:07:09 +1100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.54.251.208 X-Trace: newsfeeds.bigpond.com 976805852 203.54.251.208 (Fri, 15 Dec 2000 01:57:32 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 01:57:32 EST Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:3139 Date: 2000-12-15T02:07:09+11:00 List-Id: John English wrote: > Robert Dewar wrote: > > Warning: non-Ada diversion > > > > P.S. is aesthetics an allowable spelling in American > > english? I don't have an American dictionary at hand. > > The OED only permits the use of "e" or the ae letter > > which I can't even write in this ASCII character set, > > but does not permit a separate a and e character. > > "Aesthetic" is, of course, perfectly normal for English English, > but I've got no idea about American English. My copy of Chambers > says this: > "aesthetic: orig. relating to perception by the senses: generally > relating to possessing, or pretending to, a sense of beauty; > artistic or affecting to be artistic." > > So I suppose aesthetic is the aesthetic spelling... ;-) > > "esthesia, esthesiogen, etc. US spellings of aesthesia, etc." > > I trust Chambers implicitly (it's one of the few dictionaries that > includes that wonderful word "taghairm") so if they are happy > with "ae" rather than a ligature, I'm happy too. The OED is a > bit stuffy about these things sometimes. > > How do Americans spell "anaesthetic"? Is it "anesthetic" perchance? > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk > Senior Lecturer | http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je > Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** > University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk > ----------------------------------------------------------------- Only half-off topic... off this topic anyway, but John - your burks resource for students (in the vernacular) rocks... it is very good... excellent... as is your Ada textbook... one or two dud links on the burks site though - the motorola emulator for PC comes to mind Aesthetics (like, wayyyy off topic) - in philosophy, aesthetics applies to the mind... in a round-about-way - so though we may say that something is beautiful as we perceive it... and attribute aesthetic merit to that entity or object... philosophy looks a lot into into the relationship between our perceptions and that which we believe we perceive... which has pretty well bugger-all to do with ada or programming... perhaps. Some mathematicians "know" when a theory (or solution to a theory, whatever) is correct by the innate beauty of that aesthetic entity they perceive in their mind's eye... I imagine that a (good) programmer also knows when their solution is on the right track because of some symmetry or harmony to the system under analysis or construction... perhaps Ada makes this mental visualisation/comprehension a little more intuitive by its architecture ? As a program under analysis or construction is itself an object of conscious (and unconscious ?) apprehension, perhaps you hard-core professionals intuit your way to the best solutions to a problem by the most "attractive" possible solution ? Which begs my question: "Is a symmetrical (in the sense of harmonious, well-ordered, coherent) design also an effective one ?" I don't know... I am just a lowly student.... drowning in technical documentation with no end in sight. I will be offline for a while... so - no more of my utter irrelevancies for a while... but i do enjoy reading the technical discussions... thanks, all... :-) :-) G