On Thursday, 11 June 2015 at 21:53:57 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> Ouch, guess will stick with modern art -_-

The modern art of early 80s pop would be Yello and Art of Noise. Music with a at-the-time new sample-based sound image heavily based on these expensive beasts:

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2013/10/23/buy-boris-blanks-yello-fairlight-cmi-iii/

You probably could replace this with an iPhone today...

On 12/06/2015 2:53 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 6/10/2015 12:56 PM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> Please note, OED (which is the definition of the English language
>> whatever any USA upstarts may try to pretend) is gearing up to define
>> "they" as both singular and plural, thus at a stroke solving all the
>> he/she, she/he, (s)he, it faffing.
>
> Hmm, so instead of the documenting the language now the OED is trying to
> invent it? Such cheek! :-)
>

Nope, singular they has existed since at least the 1600s. It was an act of prejudice in the 1920s[1] that began its decline in usage. The current move by the OED is to reverse that act of invention and document actual use.

A...

[1] See Modern English Usage (3rd edition or later) [ISBN: 0-19-860263-4]

On 11/06/2015 2:30 AM, weaselcat wrote:
> On Thursday, 11 June 2015 at 00:57:34 UTC, Tofu Ninja wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 10 June 2015 at 20:14:10 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> Contrary to technical official definition, in REAL WORLD usage, "he"
>>> is BOTH a masuline AND a gender-neutral pronoun. A few occasional
>>> nutbags who deliberately ignore the "gender-neutral" possibility in
>>> order to promote their "you are all sexists" agenda is NO excuse for
>>> bowing to thier pressure.
>>
>> Personally I don't perceive he as ever being gender neutral(us native
>> speaker). If I am trying to be gender neutral then I will use "they"
>> or "that person" or "one". If some one did try to use he in a gender
>> neutral context then I think it would sound weird to me.
>
> 'he' has been a gender neutral pronoun for centuries, and as far as I'm
> aware this has its roots in latin using 'man'(vir?) as a gender neutral
> pronoun.

As far as I know, "he" was not historically gender neutral, but "man" used to be. In Old English, "man" was simply the suffix that meant "person" ("person" being a newer loan word), hence words like "chairman" and "foreman" are gender neutral (The rise of "chairperson" is feminism gone mad (or ignorant) -- she said). The Old English word for man was weiman (or werman), literally a male-person and was probably dropped as in some dialects it would likely be pronounced to similarly to "woman".

A...

On Friday, 12 June 2015 at 02:12:39 UTC, Brian Rogoff wrote:
> On Wednesday, 10 June 2015 at 19:57:15 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
>> Please note, OED (which is the definition of the English language
>> whatever any USA upstarts may try to pretend)
>
> Glad to hear it. Please tell your countrymen to prefer the '-ize' suffix, as we colonials do, to the '-ise' one, which is a French affectation.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_spelling

Funny how people argue about English spelling, because English has no spelling at all. It's irrational, inconsistent and part of the English class system. Why is it that English has the highest rate of dyslexics while Spanish has a very low rate of dyslexics? Because Spanish spelling is much more consistent and phonetic than English spelling. Gosh, you dare not say this!

Apart from that, spelling is merely a convention you get used to. People oppose to "-ize" because they were brought up with "-ise". If you have a new generation of Englishmen that were taught "-ize", they would find "-ise" strange. It's ridiculous how people get attached to stuff like this.

On Friday, 12 June 2015 at 11:13:08 UTC, Chris wrote:
> "-ise". If you have a new generation of Englishmen that were taught "-ize", they would find "-ise" strange. It's ridiculous how people get attached to stuff like this.

I have to admit I use "-ize" over "-ise" because I think it visually looks cooler. I always felt I did something wrong by mixing "colour" and "-ize", but this thread has finally lifted this guilt off my shoulders!

"They" as singular feels weird tho, but maybe it is related to the archaic "thou" and "thee"? We had the same in norwegian ~60 years ago. "De" (they) was used as singular towards strangers and "du" (you) was used with people you were familiar with. Then you could claim to be "dus" (friendly) with people you knew (referring to the fact that you use "du" when adressing them). Kinda like german "Sie".

On Friday, 12 June 2015 at 09:26:29 UTC, Alix Pexton wrote:
> On 11/06/2015 2:30 AM, weaselcat wrote:
>> On Thursday, 11 June 2015 at 00:57:34 UTC, Tofu Ninja wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, 10 June 2015 at 20:14:10 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>>> Contrary to technical official definition, in REAL WORLD usage, "he"
>>>> is BOTH a masuline AND a gender-neutral pronoun. A few occasional
>>>> nutbags who deliberately ignore the "gender-neutral" possibility in
>>>> order to promote their "you are all sexists" agenda is NO excuse for
>>>> bowing to thier pressure.
>>>
>>> Personally I don't perceive he as ever being gender neutral(us native
>>> speaker). If I am trying to be gender neutral then I will use "they"
>>> or "that person" or "one". If some one did try to use he in a gender
>>> neutral context then I think it would sound weird to me.
>>
>> 'he' has been a gender neutral pronoun for centuries, and as far as I'm
>> aware this has its roots in latin using 'man'(vir?) as a gender neutral
>> pronoun.
>
> As far as I know, "he" was not historically gender neutral, but "man" used to be. In Old English, "man" was simply the suffix that meant "person" ("person" being a newer loan word), hence words like "chairman" and "foreman" are gender neutral (The rise of "chairperson" is feminism gone mad (or ignorant) -- she said). The Old English word for man was weiman (or werman), literally a male-person and was probably dropped as in some dialects it would likely be pronounced to similarly to "woman".
>
> A...

"man" is still used as a gender neutral pronoun in German, however, for some reason it's frowned upon these days, just like "one" in English. It's considered "arrogant" and old fashioned, but it's effin useful and solves a lot of problems.

Mind you, decisions made by those who compile dictionaries and "standards" are not at all based on the reality of a given language. Double negation exists in English (and many other languages), but it's stigmati(s|z)ed as being "incorrect". The vote was 5 to 4 when this decision was made in England. The official reasoning behind it was that minus + minus = plus, i.e. "I don't have no money" would mean "I do have money", which is complete horsesh*t. Of course it means "I don't have money". The real reason, of course, was class snobbery and elitism: double negation was and still is commonly used in working class English in England (and the US, I think). Ironically enough, double negation is obligatory in standard French, while it is not used in colloquial French. This shows you how arbitrary these standards are. Don't take them too seriously, and don't start religious wars about some eggheads' decisions ;)

The same goes for "ain't". There's no reason why "ain't" should be "bad English". "I ain't got no money" is perfectly fine, although it might make the odd Oxbridge fellow cringe and spill his tea. But what the Dickens, old chap!

On 2015-06-12 01:52, Walter Bright wrote:

> I'm in the compiler business:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwIyClDuBgo

You're in the Empire business as well ;) Or was.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On Friday, 12 June 2015 at 11:35:30 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> On Friday, 12 June 2015 at 11:13:08 UTC, Chris wrote:
>> "-ise". If you have a new generation of Englishmen that were taught "-ize", they would find "-ise" strange. It's ridiculous how people get attached to stuff like this.
>
> I have to admit I use "-ize" over "-ise" because I think it visually looks cooler. I always felt I did something wrong by mixing "colour" and "-ize", but this thread has finally lifted this guilt off my shoulders!
>
> "They" as singular feels weird tho, but maybe it is related to the archaic "thou" and "thee"? We had the same in norwegian ~60 years ago. "De" (they) was used as singular towards strangers and "du" (you) was used with people you were familiar with. Then you could claim to be "dus" (friendly) with people you knew (referring to the fact that you use "du" when adressing them). Kinda like german "Sie".

Do you speak Bokmål or Nynorsk?

Here's a nice piece about "Language Mavens". They are quite common in every country, and invariably they don't have a clue about how languages and the human mind work:

http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~sih01001/english/fall2007/TheLanguageMavens.pdf

On Friday, 12 June 2015 at 13:05:36 UTC, Chris wrote:
> Do you speak Bokmål or Nynorsk?

Bokmål, but neither Bokmål or Nynorsk are naturally spoken languages, they are written languages.

Nobody actually speaks Nynorsk (only in poetry, drama and movies where it is read in a rather literal way), it is a synthetic language, but it is quite close to some dialects (and I sometimes flip over when talking to people who are close to it). Nynorsk came about as part of the national romantic movement, an attempt to find the "true norwegian language". Then again Bokmål (which I do speak) is also a "synthetic" language that came about as "mispronounced" Danish (which was the formal official language for a long time). Kind of like Danish spoken letter-by-letter thus getting more clear consonants than in a natural language. Some decades ago they decided to create a new united languages that basically was a new synthetic bastardized language that nobody wanted to speak, and they gave up on it. In the districts Bokmål is more natural and "rounded" than here in Oslo though and some dialects sounds like a natural mix and it wouldn't make much sense to say they speak Bokmål or Nynorsk. I believe pure Bokmål as a spoken language was more of an upper class thing and is called Riksmål (Bokmål that tends towards archaic forms)

The funny thing is that Danish and Bokmål almost reads the same, but sounds completely different and some words even have opposite meanings ("grine" means to laugh in Danish, but to cry in Norwegian). Norwegians sometimes joke that in order to get a Dane to understand what you are saying you have get really drunk and mumble, then they will understand you perfectly! Or maybe it is just factual and based on experience? Alcohol is cheaper in Denmark…

> Here's a nice piece about "Language Mavens". They are quite common in every country, and invariably they don't have a clue about how languages and the human mind work:
>
> http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~sih01001/english/fall2007/TheLanguageMavens.pdf

Looks very interesting, I have to give that a closer look later.

On Friday, 12 June 2015 at 13:51:55 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> On Friday, 12 June 2015 at 13:05:36 UTC, Chris wrote:
>> Do you speak Bokmål or Nynorsk?
>
> Bokmål, but neither Bokmål or Nynorsk are naturally spoken languages, they are written languages.
>
> Nobody actually speaks Nynorsk (only in poetry, drama and movies where it is read in a rather literal way), it is a synthetic language, but it is quite close to some dialects (and I sometimes flip over when talking to people who are close to it). Nynorsk came about as part of the national romantic movement, an attempt to find the "true norwegian language". Then again Bokmål (which I do speak) is also a "synthetic" language that came about as "mispronounced" Danish (which was the formal official language for a long time). Kind of like Danish spoken letter-by-letter thus getting more clear consonants than in a natural language. Some decades ago they decided to create a new united languages that basically was a new synthetic bastardized language that nobody wanted to speak, and they gave up on it. In the districts Bokmål is more natural and "rounded" than here in Oslo though and some dialects sounds like a natural mix and it wouldn't make much sense to say they speak Bokmål or Nynorsk. I believe pure Bokmål as a spoken language was more of an upper class thing and is called Riksmål (Bokmål that tends towards archaic forms)
>
> The funny thing is that Danish and Bokmål almost reads the same, but sounds completely different and some words even have opposite meanings ("grine" means to laugh in Danish, but to cry in Norwegian). Norwegians sometimes joke that in order to get a Dane to understand what you are saying you have get really drunk and mumble, then they will understand you perfectly! Or maybe it is just factual and based on experience? Alcohol is cheaper in Denmark…

Very interesting. I wish I could speak all languages on the planet!

>> Here's a nice piece about "Language Mavens". They are quite common in every country, and invariably they don't have a clue about how languages and the human mind work:
>>
>> http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~sih01001/english/fall2007/TheLanguageMavens.pdf
>
> Looks very interesting, I have to give that a closer look later.

Yes, it's a nice read. I've had my fair share of language mavens, they really don't know nothing, oops, anything about natural languages. They're just opinionated pricks that are full of themselves.