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From: Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: [OT] "sensible" in English (was: Please list all the Ada libraries
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Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2013 20:56:50 +0100
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Date: 2013-03-06T20:56:50+01:00
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Adam Beneschan writes on comp.lang.ada:
> 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.

I'll have to support Adam here.  As a Frenchman I learned early on that
"sensible" was a "false friend" to native French speakers -- it looks
and sounds like a French word -- indeed, it *is* originally a French
word -- but has a totally different meaning than in French.  In French,
"sensible" means "sensitive" while the English "sensible" should be
translated as "sensé" (i.e. "that which makes sense").  I've never
encountered a different meaning, not even when reading Tolkien or
Shakespeare, who are both known for their "creative" use of English :)

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.