LogicMania

Tronvillain:

Sorry about that. I lack some intelligence, linguistically speaking.

Christopher Lord

Option Strict would be a BASIC programming tag that is not part of the language but is constantly requested by programmers.

If they ever put it in, it would remove the variable meanings of some terms of the language.


So when i say english users sometimes turn on 'option strict', I am saying they remove ambiguity for the purpose of exact communication.
I figured someone would ask about that, heh.

LogicMania

Something that you guys might find interesting and something quite relavent to all of this is gobbledegook. Gobbledegook is basically a form of writing that loses its meaning somewhere among the weighty words and winding sentences. For example:

Pupil placement and articulation procedures should incorporate informal teacher observation as well as scores on standard evaluative instruments.

Translation: Teachers should use both common sense and test scores when promoting kids.

People write like this to feel basically superior. They also fail to think simply and logically.

When I had taken the ACT (standardized test) my Junior year last year in High School, I actually had to read through a lot of that crap. I guess gobbledegook is taking over public education, as well.

Crito

That's because the sentence above uses abstract nouns instead of active verbs: placement instead of places, articulation instead of articulates, and observation instead of observes. Joseph Williams--author of Style: Toward Clarity and Grace--calls these nouns nominalizations. As he explains, using them is not always bad; local clarity must yield to paragraph coherence. When I was younger, I used to hate learning English--espescially grammar and vocabulary. Now I realize the importance. I have a lot of catching up to do.

Some people use gobbledgook for deceptive purposes too--this is also from Style. In one example, Williams tells of a study, which researched a particular case where few people brought their cars in for repair after receiving a letter for recall. Turns out that many could not understand what the letter said!

-Crito

[ January 05, 2002: Message edited by: Crito ]</p>

tronvillain

three4jump: possibly some of all three.