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Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:16:08 +0100
From: Georg Bauhaus <rm.tsoh.plus-bug.bauhaus@maps.futureapps.de>
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Subject: Temporary variables
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Date: 2010-02-02T01:16:08+01:00
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Recently, more and more WWW writers writing about programming
seem to prefer the phrase "temporal variable" to "temporary
variable", for exmple, in the Ada wikibook.  I don't know
English well, but I had thought (and have checked) that
"temporal" is not the same as "temporary".  It is either

(a) "temporal", the opposite of "spiritual" (that which is
not eternal like the spirit, but physical), or

(b) an adjective next to dimension as in "temporal and spatial
dimensions of the universe", or

(c) referring to temple, a word of cranial anatomy.  See the
"temporal line" in
http://www.face-and-emotion.com/dataface/physiognomy/cranium.jsp

Translations of "temporary" into the dialects of Latin
do not seem to justify "temporal" for "temporary" either.
On the contrary.  Neither do these sources, AFAICT:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/temporal
http://www.wordreference.com/enru/temporary

There is also temporal logic which does not seem to focus
on temporarily used variables but on the logic of
when things are true.

Should there be corrections made to the Ada wiki book, then?
E.g. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Errors


(Where does this use of "temporal" with "variable" come from?
It seems wrong, really?  Guesswork?  Mechanic use of grammar?
Or do people start checking the use of phrases with the help of
the number of occurrences of the phrase in Google search?
If so, Google might leed to an unfortunate self-fulfilling
prophecy.
(I am guilty of creating misunderstandings myself when trying
to speak English but all the more I would not want this to
be an excuse for not trying to avoid whatever mistake there is.))