Thread: English Question :P

  1. #1
    Ugly C Lover audinue's Avatar
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    English Question :P

    Sorry for asking this. Just confused a bit while naming interfaces.

    Is it writeable or writable?

    Is it closeable or closable?



    How iteration, iterator become iterable? Not Iteratable <-- LoL weird

    The next is method naming.
    However,
    Code:
    method == behaviour == verb
    Is "iterator" a verb?
    Is "value of" a verb?
    Is "next" a verb??

    I think "move next" is a verb.


    Thank you.
    Just GET it OFF out my mind!!

  2. #2
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Without going directly into your questions, I'm just going to give you general advice. English can be a very strange language and in many cases it doesn't follow a consistent set of rules... knowing it is simply that... you just have to know it. You learn it by seeing it, hearing it, and making mistakes... for all of these questions you can get a simple answer from a dictionary and I believe you should rather than asking here.

    You'll find in many cases, there isn't necessarily a "why" when it comes to how a word is spelled or written.



    That said, all I can tell you is that you seem to have a lot of confusion on what a verb is and probably it would be best to look up a simple lesson on verbs.
    Sent from my iPadŽ

  3. #3
    and the Hat of Guessing tabstop's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by audinue View Post
    Sorry for asking this. Just confused a bit while naming interfaces.

    Is it writeable or writable?
    Writable.
    Quote Originally Posted by audinue View Post
    Is it closeable or closable?
    Yes.
    Quote Originally Posted by audinue View Post
    How iteration, iterator become iterable? Not Iteratable <-- LoL weird
    The root word is iterate. I strongly doubt that you could get away with either of iterable or iteratable.
    Quote Originally Posted by audinue View Post
    The next is method naming.
    However,
    Code:
    method == behaviour == verb
    Is "iterator" a verb?
    Is "value of" a verb?
    Is "next" a verb??
    "Iterator" is a noun (and hey -- that's a data type after all). "Value" is a noun, and "of" is a preposition. "Next" is an adverb.

  4. #4
    Ugly C Lover audinue's Avatar
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    Yes, languages are inexact, that's the hardest one to learn.

    Thank you.
    Just GET it OFF out my mind!!

  5. #5
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by audinue View Post
    Is it writeable or writable?

    Is it closeable or closable?
    Don't worry, either one is close enough (but it's writeable and closable). The spelling here has to do with pronunciation and vowel sounds/rules.

    Quote Originally Posted by tabstop View Post
    "Next" is an adverb.
    "next" is usually an adjective (something that applies a characteristic to a noun) and since "move next" here probably means move the next something, it's adjectival.

    Adverbial use of next would be like in chess: "You move next." Sometimes next is part of a prepostion: "next to"

    The verb form of "iterator" is iterate.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

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    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    >> "next" is usually an adjective (something that applies a characteristic to a noun) and since "move next" here probably means move the next something, it's adjectival.

    Grammer never was my strong point, but I'm pretty sure "next" is an adverb (and hence "move next" would be verb->adverb). Adjectives, on the other hand, describe nouns.

    On a side note, the word "close" is a great example of the inconsistency of English.

    [kloz] : the reverse of open
    [klos] : near

  7. #7
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sebastiani View Post
    Grammer never was my strong point, but I'm pretty sure "next" is an adverb (and hence "move next" would be verb->adverb). Adjectives, on the other hand, describe nouns.
    Like a lot of common words next can be an adjective, adverb, preposition, or a noun itself. If you say "the next one", next is an adjective. If you say "we jump next" it is adverbial. I was interpreting audinue's (uncontextualized) statement in the context of programming, where it is most likely "move the next thing", wherein next is an adjective (it modifies the noun "thing"). If it was an instruction of the sort "subsequent to this, you move" it would be adverbial, but in most programming contexts there is no you because there is no other (and no "this" to be understood as subsequent to): the verb is applied to a noun, in this case, "next". So next is either a noun or an adjective there (as with programming languages that use "next" like C's "continue"; altho continue is a verb, these keywords have different spins IMO. It certainly cannot be an adverb there because that would be to say you are modifying the verb that continue represents, which you ain't).

    next - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

    "close" is almost a homonym but actually a heteronym. These are common to all or most languages and have nothing in particular to do with the "inconsistency of English".
    Last edited by MK27; 08-16-2009 at 06:48 PM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

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    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    >> On a side note, the word "close" is a great example of the inconsistency of English.

    Well we're still using a completely phonetic alphabet, homophones are always going to be hard.

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    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by whiteflags View Post
    >> On a side note, the word "close" is a great example of the inconsistency of English.

    Well we're still using a completely phonetic alphabet, homophones are always going to be hard.
    It's actually a homograph - homophones have different spellings but the same pronunciation. And I would argue that English is hardly a phonetic language (whereas Spanish, for example, is almost completely phonetic).

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sebastiani View Post
    It's actually a homograph - homophones have different spellings but the same pronunciation. And I would argue that English is hardly a phonetic language (whereas Spanish, for example, is almost completely phonetic).
    And the reason for this is that no one has dared do what the Italians, Spanish and French did: Rework the dictionary whilst not too many people could read/write, so that spelling and pronunciation matched up. Instead we have stupidities like read being able to rhyme with bead and red without changing it's spelling, and the town of Slough rhyming with cow, not tough or dough. And of course the river Thames and the herb thyme do pronounce the "th" as "t", which is not the case for other "th" in English (comes from their origin in Gaelic/Welsh).

    --
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    Compilers can produce warnings - make the compiler programmers happy: Use them!
    Please don't PM me for help - and no, I don't do help over instant messengers.

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    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sebastiani View Post
    And I would argue that English is hardly a phonetic language (whereas Spanish, for example, is almost completely phonetic).
    Probably because the latin-romance languages, being older, have more of a history with the alphabet. So they have adaptations like accents, which instead of accents in English, we use combinations of letters with particular rules ("ea", etc).
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

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    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sebastiani View Post
    It's actually a homograph - homophones have different spellings but the same pronunciation. And I would argue that English is hardly a phonetic language (whereas Spanish, for example, is almost completely phonetic).
    The English writing system is phonetic because we form proper spelling based on sounds and a few (almost unspoken) rules.

    Whether the English language is phonetic should be even less of an argument compared to say ASL.

    But other than that thanks for the correction.

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    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    I wish I wish I had a ghyti.

    It's a line from a Dr. Suess book. Pronunciation guide:

    - tough
    - analysis
    - pronunciation



    Quote Originally Posted by matsp View Post
    And the reason for this is that no one has dared do what the Italians, Spanish and French did: Rework the dictionary whilst not too many people could read/write, so that spelling and pronunciation matched up. Instead we have stupidities like read being able to rhyme with bead and red without changing it's spelling, and the town of Slough rhyming with cow, not tough or dough. And of course the river Thames and the herb thyme do pronounce the "th" as "t", which is not the case for other "th" in English (comes from their origin in Gaelic/Welsh).

    --
    Mats
    Right. And we've adopted words from so many languages without much effort to normalize their spelling, which of course makes English one of the harder languages to learn. Come to think of it, you bloody Brits are responsible for this whole mess in the first place.

  14. #14
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Hey now everyone knows French was the language of the "English" court and state for most of the last millenia? Where the written form would be official and standardized.

    English itself was a vernacular with a much more heterogeneous background unlike most other European languages which had the advantage of (often multiple) state affiliations. That's probably why it ended up with such a large vocabulary and remains so "dynamic and flexible" today.
    Last edited by MK27; 08-16-2009 at 07:29 PM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  15. #15
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    Like a lot of common words next can be an adjective, adverb, preposition, or a noun itself. If you say "the next one", next is an adjective. If you say "we jump next" it is adverbial. I was interpreting audinue's (uncontextualized) statement in the context of programming, where it is most likely "move the next thing", wherein next is an adjective (it modifies the noun "thing"). If it was an instruction of the sort "subsequent to this, you move" it would be adverbial, but in most programming contexts there is no you because there is no other (and no "this" to be understood as subsequent to): the verb is applied to a noun, in this case, "next". So next is either a noun or an adjective there (as with programming languages that use "next" like C's "continue"; altho continue is a verb, these keywords have different spins IMO. It certainly cannot be an adverb there because that would be to say you are modifying the verb that continue represents, which you ain't).

    next - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

    "close" is almost a homonym but actually a heteronym. These are common to all or most languages and have nothing in particular to do with the "inconsistency of English".
    Damn, I should have looked that up. Like I said, grammer never was my strongest suit. Thanks for setting that straight.

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