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From: ncohen@watson.ibm.com (Norman H. Cohen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,alt.adumbration
Subject: Adumbrated (was: Summarise)
Date: 9 Feb 1995 17:02:41 GMT
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
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References: <1995Feb1.204503.1378@cs.tcd.ie>
 <gauthier-0202951124430001@164.81.60.62> <3guv7j$l7t@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>
 <1995Feb6.153045.4445@sei.cmu.edu> <3h8jh6$2i3@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>
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Date: 1995-02-09T17:02:41+00:00
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In article <3h8jh6$2i3@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: 

|> I guess brother Firth would have felt at home with N. Birkett who wrote
|> in 1953 (Magic of Words, a pleasant reference): "When I hear of...things
|> being adjumbreated, or visualized, or finalized..I think of the other aim
|> of this [English] Association, 'To uphold the standards of English writing
|> or speech'"

According to the online OED here, the word is "adumbrated", not
"adjumbreated".  I guess one part of Robert's brain was thinking of
"adjusted, or initialized, or finalized" while another part was trying to
type "adumbrated, or visualized, or finalized".

OED gices the following meanings for "adumbrate": 

1.  To shade (a picture), to represent with due light and shade so as to
complete what has been sketched or delineated.
2.  To represent the shadow of (anything), to draw or figure in outline;
to outline; to sketch; to give faint indication of.
3.  To represent a substrance by its 'shadow' or emblem; to shadow forth,
to typify; hence, to foreshadow, prefigure, as 'coming events cast their
shadows before.'
4.  To overshadow; to shade, obscure.

Another online dictionary that identifies itself only as "Webster's
Seventh" (not to be confused with Beethoven's Fifth) gives the following
definitions: 

1. to foreshadow vaguely: INTIMATE
2a. to give a sketchy representation or outline of
2b. to suggest or disclose partially
3. SHADE, OBSCURE

During the Ada 9X design process, I objected to the term "abstract type"
because it could be confused with the distinct notion of "abstract data
type," but I was unable to come up with a satisfactory alternative.  Too
late, alas, I now realize that abstract types should have been called
"adumbrated types", in the sense of Webster definitions 1 and 2.  ;-)

   type T adumbrated tagged null record;
   procedure P(X: in out T) is adumbrated;

--
Norman H. Cohen    ncohen@watson.ibm.com