New Windows OS
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Unit testing is bullshit, anyways.
I always get my units pre-tested by the vendor. It costs a bit more, but it saves a lot of effort and anxiety.
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So I've been glancing at a google news search for Windows 10 for the past couple days, to see the general opinion.
Everyone loves it, except the Register, who think it's SatanHitler.
I hope you're not surprised by the Register's opinion (and that of its readers) about this...(Curiously, a good slice of them think the Win8 interface is really good, maybe even a winner, on phones, and maybe on tablets, but hate it everywhere else.)
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@Steve_The_Cynic said:
I think you mean "modern English spelling"
Yes and no. If you read texts from bygone centuries, many nouns are often capitalised in various European languages, but hardly ever consistently — you’ll find plenty of texts in which some are and some aren’t, even in the same sentence. I suppose it was mainly done for Effect, drawing the reader’s attention to those nouns and/or stressing their importance to the text or point being made.
Yes, I know. I've been reading 13th Century Middle English texts like Havelok the Dane and King Horn. You can't really do this without notes because:- Spelling in 13th Century Middle English lacks a certain important something: consistency.
- The vocabulary hadn't yet incorporated most of the 45-50% of French-derived words in Modern English, so there's a whole bunch of words you won't recognise.
- There are two subject pronouns spelled "he", but they aren't the same two that you have in Modern English. ModEng has "he, a male person" and "he, a person of unspecified sex". The second one is commonly misspelled as "he or she". 13CMidEng "he" could be a single male person or it could be the same thing that we spell "they", and only the verb conjugation and/or context will tell you.
@Steve_The_Cynic said:
Translating idioms is one of the hardest parts of translating between languages, and this difficulty is why translation is best handled at the phrase or even sentence level.
And best done by someone with at least some actual knowledge of the subject being translated — that’s where I think it usually goes wrong, at least when it comes to even remotely specialised subjects.
Yes, I know all about that problem. My company has a regular professional translator for French-to-English work - technical documentation is written in French and then translated to English - but I get reasonably frequent questions about the translations because the translator is not up to speed on the technical vocabulary.For example, in Dutch subtitles in shows on Discovery or similar channels, it’s pretty much a toss-up whether the English word “solder” will be subtitled as “solderen” (to solder) or as “lassen” (to weld).
Well, some welding processes are sort of a bit like soldering using the same kind of metal as the work pieces.But yes, translating "solder" using a verb meaning "to weld" isn't very good translation work.
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Spelling in 13th Century Middle English lacks a certain important something: consistency.
It’s not like modern English is very consistent in spelling — I’m sure I don’t need to mention the “ough” problem.13CMidEng "he" could be a single male person or it could be the same thing that we spell "they"
“They”/“them” in the meaning of “he or she”/“him or her” is a very recent thing, though, to the best of my knowledge — I’m not a linguist or language historian, but I doubt it was common even 20–25 years ago. At least, I don’t remember reading or hearing it back then yet, though that could also be due to what I used to read and watch on TV at the time.I get reasonably frequent questions about the translations because the translator is not up to speed on the technical vocabulary.
That may not be ideal, but it’s far better than the translator being mistaken due to ignorance over lack of knowledge.Well, some welding processes are sort of a bit like soldering using the same kind of metal as the work pieces.
And you think people who studied a language rather than learned metalworking know this? :)
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@Steve_The_Cynic said:
Spelling in 13th Century Middle English lacks a certain important something: consistency.
It’s not like modern English is very consistent in spelling — I’m sure I don’t need to mention the “ough” problem.
No, that's not what I mean at all. I mean that the spelling of the same word is not guaranteed to be the same each time. (And yes, I know that contemporary Internet English has this problem, but that's even newer than Modern English.)@Steve_The_Cynic said:
13CMidEng "he" could be a single male person or it could be the same thing that we spell "they"
“They”/“them” in the meaning of “he or she”/“him or her” is a very recent thing, though, to the best of my knowledge — I’m not a linguist or language historian, but I doubt it was common even 20–25 years ago. At least, I don’t remember reading or hearing it back then yet, though that could also be due to what I used to read and watch on TV at the time.
Careful with that. By "they" I meant the 3rd person plural pronoun in a plural sense. In the 13th Century, it was usually spelled "he", but so was the 3rd person singular masculine pronoun.And there are claims of historicity for using the 3rd plural pronouns for "person of unspecified gender", and that the first three-quarters of the 20th Century are an anomaly. I don't buy it, because it is saying that "this a historical feature of the language corrupted by modern practice so it's OK to go back to that." Too many people say "hey! you can't cling to the past when using languages! Languages change!" for the claims of historicity to be anything other than excuse-mongering.
@Steve_The_Cynic said:
I get reasonably frequent questions about the translations because the translator is not up to speed on the technical vocabulary.
That may not be ideal, but it’s far better than the translator being mistaken due to ignorance over lack of knowledge.Well, some welding processes are sort of a bit like soldering using the same kind of metal as the work pieces.
And you think people who studied a language rather than learned metalworking know this? :)Not particularly likely, no.
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I mean that the spelling of the same word is not guaranteed to be the same each time.
That’s hardly unique to English, or to the 13th century. Spellings for European languages only tended to get formalised in the 18th or 19th century, so before that, anything goes. Though it always puzzles me a bit why even supposedly learned people managed to vary their own spelling even on a single page. Over a longer time, sure — “How did I spell this word again? Oh, let’s go with … ” but if you can read back your own writing of a few minutes earlier, it’s a bit harder to comprehend.By "they" I meant the 3rd person plural pronoun in a plural sense. In the 13th Century, it was usually spelled "he", but so was the 3rd person singular masculine pronoun.
Ah, yes, misunderstood you there. Dutch up until about World War II has a similar problem in that the feminine pronoun haar (“her”) could be either singular or plural, and that throws off modern readers. You get sentences like (translated to English) “The girls wore her hair loose” and think,
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And there are claims (…) that the first three-quarters of the 20th Century are an anomaly.
That should be (dis)provable by counting words in books, wouldn’t it? Not that I’d volunteer for the job, though … I can think of more fun (and better) things to do with my time.
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Spelling in 13th Century Middle English lacks a certain important something: consistency.
I found, years ago, when trying to read Chaucer that pronouncing the words, at least mentally, if not actually out loud, helped reduce the need to refer to the glossary. Many Middle English words are recognizable from their spelling; some that are not are recognizable from their sound. Of course, some are neither, and the glossary is still needed. Pronouncing the words also considerably reduces the speed at which one can read, of course, and I got so bogged down in it that I never did finish Canterbury Tales.
ETA: I was reading a modern edition with Middle English on one page and the Modern English translation on the facing page. I can't be sure without going and finding that book, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Middle English text had been edited to make it consistent and easier for the student.
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That should be (dis)provable by counting words in books, wouldn’t it?
Well, except that for "he" and/or "she" vs "they", you can't just count the number of times each word shows up--you'd have to examine the context of every use of "they", at a minimum, to know what it represented each time.
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ETA: I was reading a modern edition with Middle English on one page and the Modern English translation on the facing page. I can't be sure without going and finding that book, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Middle English text had been edited to make it consistent and easier for the student.
My source for Havelok and Horn is a modern-orthography version of the original MidEng texts. Somewhat learned, then, and definitely lacking in ModEng parallel text. The book is published by university press of, of all places, Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. This is less strange sounding than it might at first seem, because WMU is a big force in the study of mediaeval European literature, and hosts the biggest annual scholarly conference on that subject.
When I say "modern-orthography version", I mean that the letters "thorn" (þ) and "wynn" (ƿ) have been replaced by their modern equivalents, "th" and "w", but that the spelling is not otherwise modified.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr7v_UCsdzc
(I have no idea why this video's quality is so poor... can't seem to find a better version of it)
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(I have no idea why this video's quality is so poor... can't seem to find a better version of it)
I love George Takei <3
He amuses me greatly :3
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I always get my units pre-tested by the vendor. It costs a bit more, but it saves a lot of effort and anxiety.
Fu if I wanted to put that emoji there I would have just kept typing after I added the missing period. ck you discourse
