Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding

From:

Lew <lew@lewscanon.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.emacs,comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 12:40:48 -0400

Message-ID:

<j4idnUL3ktWNkZTanZ2dnUVZ_ujinZ2d@comcast.com>

Lew wrote:

David Kastrup wrote:

Lew <lew@lewscanon.com> writes:

lhb@nowhere.com wrote:

Words are defined by popular usage. In popular usage, the meaning
of free as an adjective depends on the context. If the adjective is
applied to people, it means the opposite of slavery or imprisonment.
If it's applied to something other than people, it means free as in
beer.

Unless it's applied to open-source software, which by popular usage
has "free" mean "free of restrictions on use."

Words are also defined by technical usage. Would you claim that
"thread" means only a yarn of fabric?

For example, a dog with no owner, wandering freely (adverb), would
not be called a free dog (adjective), to mean possessing freedom.
Free dog means free as in beer.

"I was walking my dog, but he got free of the leash. Now he's running
free all over the neighborhood."

Uh, neither of which contains "free dog".

"He ... free"

Sigh. It's "free" as an adjective, referring to the dog, thus refuting
the claim that "free" applied to "dog" must mean "free of charge". The
claim isn't limited to just the phrase "free dog" literally, but the
application of the adjective to dogs. I provided a counterexample.

But if you want to be so ridiculously anal about it:

"I have a caged dog and one I let wander. My neighbor got mad and shot the
free dog."

There, are you satisfied? Hmm?

--
Lew