Re: 1.5.12-1: ld (make) Error while compiling

[Brian Dessent <brian at dessent dot net>]

Corinna Vinschen wrote:

> - What about the fairly widespread usage of slang expressions like
>   "dunno", "nope" or even "thanks"?  What's different to "plz"?

Well, in spoken English it would be common for someone to say "nope" or
"thanks".   I don't think a person would ever say "plz" instead of
"please", and if he did he would sound like a real idiot that can't talk
or had a speech disorder.

> - We're using a pretty big number of acronyms like AFAIK, ASAP, YMMV
>   in daily email exchange.  How is that different to "u r"?

This is true.

> - Most disturbingly, there's an "official" way of using shorthands in
>   the written english language:
> 
>     you're, there's, can't
> 
>   instead of
> 
>     you are, there is, cannot

Yes, but these mirror the way the language is spoken.  "you are" is
verbally shortened to "you're" when spoken, and so the written language
reflects that.  They are two different words.  However, "u" and "you"
are representing the same word.  Representing "you" as "u" has nothing
to do with the language or how it's spoken, it's simply a thing that
lazy people do to save typing a few extra characters.

> any of these shortcuts, despite of the above article.  So, what is
> it that makes some of us uneasy about "u r" and friends, while we're
> happily using a lot of different shorthands without much thinking?
> Is there a difference in quality?  For example, do you think using
> "u r" is in some way impolite against the reader while using "you're"
> isn't because it's common sense and using "you are" is just outlandish?

I think it's impolite because it's not proper English.  When I read "u r
2 slo" I want to vomit because it hurts the eyes and goes against the
English pattern recognition that years of reading proper English in
books, newspapers, journals, schooling, etc. has established.  Langauge
is about conveying ideas using a common, shared set of words or ideas. 
While I can still understand what is written, it is much more unpleasant
to do so.  In a sense it's like posting snippets of code in a manual or
technical document that would not compile due to syntax errors.  Sure,
the reader can still basically piece together the intended purpose of
the code, but why deliberately write something that's broken and
improper just to save a few keystrokes?

People will make the argument that language evolves and that we should
all just get used to seeing "u" instead of "you", but I don't buy it. 
If the word "you" actually evolved into a different word that was
pronounced differently, then fine, spell it differently.  But this is
not about the language itself changing, it's about lazy typists (or
non-typists as the case may be) wanting to save some effort at the
expense of everyone else.  By that line of reasoning I should be able to
just gzip-compress my text and paste it in base-64 encoded form, since
that would express my feelings in the minimal number of characters. 
Would it be hard to read?  Yes, it sure would.

And that's my complaint in a nutshell.  If you want to communicate in a
written medium then do it properly, otherwise you just look lazy and
unprofessional.  If you want to talk to your buddies on MSN using
AOL-speak, then fine... But don't bring that junk to email, and
especially not to email on a mailing list where it will be potentially
read by hundreds or thousands.

Brian