From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1OmWsW-0002dq-9i for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:03:48 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 59C1DE0877; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:03:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ew0-f53.google.com (mail-ew0-f53.google.com [209.85.215.53]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1CFEDE0877 for ; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:03:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy19 with SMTP id 19so2674575ewy.40 for ; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:03:14 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:from:to:subject:date :user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:message-id; bh=NS6wPdB/qqZuxxSy4ta4y8yeJh6kyHPfvs7yMMjaOV8=; b=kjxs/K0UYFWdS1XS+YB+ksWZhPAj5W82k2N5rI5+rwkum9EhPv+pTBz1zO5arZIlNx W9DectmdSZDrwES1CaDry5/9NHVpZgD4Nu7dUyZQ43YrvGWN8EAywfwNqeSTHnP5UnmN 19t3I3EHNuK5fd5miuHedlRzT5teyg7gjR1tw= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; b=s3MnPNttKo6w1UPi8uQJlXA+3RFqvHhp0ctAqwcltwnWxEQpNqv7RdD/CfkLrvCdJo L4vEuvD3CjwyTpXp78G3au+zEGEQjbEkVeWEH4oKgK0nsDK59WWWhsQIkmWrkcGJsL+y Z4pn03aeR6S1o4VQD/hNbVdngJqZfXv2zjY90= Received: by 10.213.112.141 with SMTP id w13mr1656883ebp.95.1282330994064; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:03:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nazgul.localnet (196-210-202-152.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.210.202.152]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id z55sm5294633eeh.9.2010.08.20.12.03.11 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:03:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [WAY OT] Parenthese, was Re: [gentoo-user] I can RTFM, but can I understand it: re elog messages Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:00:16 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (Linux/2.6.34-ck-r1; KDE/4.4.5; x86_64; ; ) References: <4C6EB66A.80100@kutulu.org> In-Reply-To: <4C6EB66A.80100@kutulu.org> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <201008202100.16552.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: 5adcce65-b711-46a4-a73c-a858e8e72bd1 X-Archives-Hash: 72a610c04f8982768f4af0f06fc104a0 Apparently, though unproven, at 19:07 on Friday 20 August 2010, Mike Edenfi= eld=20 did opine thusly: > On 8/20/2010 11:40 AM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote: > > As to the thingies, I enjoyed discovering that to many people a > > parenthesis is not a glyph or punctuation mark, but instead the contents > > of the language set aside in one way or another. I had always regarded > > parentheses as the round glyphs (), but this turns out to be normative > > primarily in mathematics, computer programming languages and similar > > fields. But I find several competing meanings and sources using > > http://dictionary.reference.com/cite.html?qh=3Dparenthesis&ia=3Dluna > > >=20 > In American English usage, the three forms of puncutation mark have > distinct names. Contrary to previous assertions, these names are not > informal; authoritative American English dictionaries like M-W define > "bracket", "brace", and "parenthesis" separately as punctuation marks. >=20 > In British English they're all called "brackets", e.g. square, curly, or > round. Yuck. Too many times I've had someone dictate text and this happens: Them: open bracket .... Me: Which bracket? Them: huh? Me: You said open bracket. What kind of bracket? Them: Curly? Me: You mean brace. Them: Yes, that's the one! Is that what it's called then? Way too many words. Just give the bloody thing a name. Like Eskimo's with 20+ words for different kinds of snow. Say "snow" to any Eskimo, see what happens :-) >=20 > The Romance languages are somewhat varied, but they mostly use the Greek > word parenthesis to derive their term for () marks; in some cases, that > word is use for *all* brackets; in other cases [] and {} have separate > terms: >=20 > () =3D parenth=C3=A8ses (Fr.), par=C3=A9ntesis (Sp.), parentesi tonde (It= =2E) > [] =3D crochets (Fr.), corchetes (Sp.), parentesi quadre (It.) > {} =3D accolades (Fr.), corchetes (Sp.), parentesi graffe (It.) >=20 > For what it's worth, Unicode defines U+0028 AND U+0029 as "LEFT > PARENTHESIS" and "RIGHT PARENTHESIS" (also "OPENING PARENTHESIS" and > "CLOSING PARENTHESIS"). >=20 > --Mike =2D-=20 alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com