Re: List Strawman JC01

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <uk7vzudrz.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov>, Stephen Leake says...
>
>I don't think "Front" and "Back" are significantly more
>"directionless" than "First" and "Last". "A" and "B" would be more
>directionless, although even those have an alphabetical order.

I thought a lot about this, and I couldn't really come up with anything more
neutral. "A" and "B" (or "A" and "Z") do imply an order (alphabetical). "First"
and "Last" obviously do too for the same reason. Even "Left" and "Right" imply
an order (reading order). That order is different for some people than it is for
others, but each individual reader will have a specific order it implies to
them.

"Front" and "Back" may have a certian implication of order, but its not very
strong. I go front to back in a book, but back to front in a line (queue for
non-americans). If my 6 year old were to ask me which comes first, "Front" or
"Back" (he often asks questions like that), I'd have to ask for context, or
declare it a nonsensical question. 

>> The answer of course is that you *can't*. 
>
>Ok, but neither can I find the "Front"!

Quite True. But you can find the ends, and we do have to arbitrarily label each
end *something*. We just have to find nice linear but direction-neutral
somethings to name them.

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T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html

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