[plt-scheme] Ambiguous Words

It'll get you killed :-)

To be honest, I have a really hard time coping with programs that use 
German words (for example). Even though it makes sense, I get 
goosebumps due to what I consider extreme lack of coherence. It's 
worse, I even don't like the choices of English words that English 
natives use, because they appeal (for example) to imperative actions.

-- Matthias


On Sep 15, 2005, at 1:24 PM, Richard Cleis wrote:

> Ambiguous words lead to clumsy scripts.  E.g., common words like 
> 'open' and 'close' can be nouns and verbs; in addition, they have 
> multiple useful meanings.  Does anyone have an opinion on using 
> languages other than English (Latin?) for scripting in Scheme?
>
> In our laboratory, we might 'open' a file for saving data, then 
> 'close' a feedback loop on a translation stage, then wait for the 
> position to be 'close' to the commanded position, then 'save' data (or 
> is it collect data? or write? or bag?).  In this case, the opposite 
> words 'open' and 'close' have the same positive context with respect 
> to their discipline.
>
> Establishments resist changing their jargon to suit others (e.g., 
> controls engineers won't say 'activate' instead of 'close' or computer 
> specialists won't say 'terminate'), so I wonder if choosing a neutral 
> language would work... or lead to my firing.
>
> rac
>
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