" 'You don't spell background-color with a U,' and walked away."
How else do you spell colour?
Welcome to the sixth instalment of "Who, me?", The Register's confessional for IT pros who managed to break stuff before it became the kind of user-generated mess story we run in On-Call. This week, meet "Don" who told us that "Back in very late 2012 I spent almost two hours debugging a front-end error on an app." That's well …
"...until I came across "burglarized"."
Is that Ignoramous for burgled?
Also I have come across bit when they mean bitten and broke when they mean broken. Broke as a adjective ONLY means out of money. Check your nearest English dictionary.
Yes, gifted' is a smarmy circumlocation to make giving something sound more, I don't know, formal and important, not just giving, but somehow conferring, a signifier of extra greatness, emotion, charity, generosity, whatever.
Unless, of course, it is 're-gifted'.
""Gifted" is the one that currently annoys me."
Some of the roots of English come from Scandinavian languages. I often wonder if there is a connection between the modern English "gift" - and the Swedish word "gift"*** which is "marry".
Traditionally in England a bride was her father's possession that was "given" to the groom.
***it also translates as "poison".
"Gifted" and "given" both have the same number of syllables--so, I don't get where it takes any longer to say. I'd also like to point out that the word "give" is used in a more broad sense, to mean the transfer of something, which may or may not involve receiving something in return--but the word "gifted" often carries further implications.
Gift:
something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present.
So, it's all about context--in the case of a purchase, you wouldn't say that you were gifted something after handing the cashier money, because it was part of a transaction. You gave them money, and they gave you what you agreed to purchase. However, if they declined your payment, they could have gifted you with the item you desired to purchase--because it was given without expectation.
While there may be a "U" in the UK and EU, there's no "U" in Bexit--so, maybe some of those goofy French spellings will get dropped in the process?
"something given voluntarily without payment in return"
Except that many cultures attach great importance on an exchange of gifts. I find people are usually rather disconcerted if you give them a gift and insist on nothing in return "I expect nothing, I need nothing".
Of course such an apparently altruistic gift may have hidden emotional strings attached - a power play to establish your superiority. There is a saying apparently attributed to Benjamin Franklin. "Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones - with ingratitude. Benjamin Franklin".
It sometimes necessary to give the other person a way to a redemption for them to save face with a ritual exchange. I often use the following old sentiment in those circumstances - "Anything I would like is either illegal; immoral; or the doctor would not approve".
If you look carefully*, you'll notice that in Murcan Nglish, "bias" is fast becoming the past participle -- hence, also the adjectival form. That was the point of my post. And, yes, you were intended to catch it. I don't support the change, of course. Nor the broader trend.
The comprehensibility of on-line text is declining rapidly. You'd think by now the principle outlets would route textual submissions (e.g. comments) through a spell- and grammar-checker, then pass the proffered text back to the poster -- with red-lining -- asking for a few changes to be made for clarity, readability, etc. … It would not be difficult to programmatically assess posts for 'reading level' and add posting delays in inverse proportion to that metric. With fair warning, of course.
* e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/227ns7/why_is_bias_replacing_biased_as_an_adjective/
I did consider at one point they removed the letter U because they were just lazy
No - they made a conscious decision to simplfy English to enable all the non English-speaking immigrants (Germans and Dutch for the most part at that point) to learn the language more easily.
Which is kind of laudable in its own way.
No - they made a conscious decision to simplify English to enable all the non English-speaking immigrants (Germans and Dutch for the most part at that point) to learn the language more easily.
Which is kind of laudable in its own way.
And yet most Dutch and German English speakers; speak better English than half the left AND right pondian "native" English speakers
'And yet most Dutch and German English speakers; speak better English than half the left AND right pondian "native" English speakers'
I find that with most that have studied English as a second language. You don't try that hard with your native language, coz it just comes naturally, but you do try hard with other languages, coz you are studying them for a reason. The same likely applies to native English speakers learning other languages. Almost every European I have heard or seen saying "Please excuse my bad English, it's not my native tongue." has been better at English than a large percentage of native English speakers.
Both spellings are many centuries old. Color, now regarded as the American spelling, in fact predates the United States by several centuries. In early use the spellings vied for ascendancy with several other spellings. Colur, culoure, and coolor, for instance, were all in the mix before the modern British spelling gained permanent prevalence in the 17th century.
The removal of U from colour and other words was partly an attempt to distance American English from English English, but also an attempt to remove some French influences from the language.
Program used to be the English spelling, but Victorian show promotors wanted to infer a touch of French flair by advertising a programme of events on their posters. These days i refer to television programmes and computer programs.
Reminds me of the time many years ago when my wife, secretary in / to an electronics lab in the UK, typed a document for our resident Septic engineer:
Paraphrased from memory:
"Say, you've typed program(me) as both program and programme in this document..."
<< Q short lesson in English like wot she is spoken and writ >>
Grins all round when the story got out.
I think program for 'things wot run on computers' is more or less agreed on, though I do remember university exams saying 'linear programme'.
But what about dialog or dialogue? My view is that like program for things wot run on computers vs programme for things wot you watch it should be dialog as in 'having a dialogue about dialogs'.
as a kid, for the longest time, I was confused by the spelling of 'bough' - always thought it was pronounced 'bow' like 'bow and arrow', and not 'bow' as in 'bow to show respect'. And in my mind it was never connected to the spelling for 'tree bough'. It may be the worst example of arcane non-phonetic spelling causing confusion. [but in middle english it probably rhymed with 'cough'].
It may be the worst example of arcane non-phonetic spelling causing confusion
The trouble with English is that it's a complete packrat of a language - it has vocabulary and grammar from quite a few other languages grafted onto the fairly simple Germanic roots until the end result is more like a hazel thicket than a mighty oak tree..
The trouble with English is that it's a complete packrat of a language - it has vocabulary and grammar from quite a few other languages grafted onto the fairly simple Germanic roots until the end result is more like a hazel thicket than a mighty oak tree..
hence the famous quote from James Nicoll oft used to silence those who complain that no one speaks "proper" English any longer
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
"The removal of U from colour and other words was partly an attempt to distance American English from English English, but also an attempt to remove some French influences from the language.
"Program used to be the English spelling, but Victorian show promotors wanted to infer a touch of French flair by advertising a programme of events on their posters. These days i refer to television programmes and computer programs."
So what you are describing is a pogrom against the French.
A week or so ago I came across a West-Pondian TV programme that referred to Her Britannic Majesty as having been "coronated". It took a while for the penny to drop and then I realised they really meant 'crowned'.
The site where I looked up this travesty also had a pop-up window with the delightfully ironic title, "Words you've been using wrong".
How else do you spell colour?
Well, if you suffer from the particular form of stupidity I experienced some few years ago (say, 1991), you make extra pain for yourself.
I was working with Borland's Turbo C and its text-mode character attribute management system.
Its interface used American spellings, and I was working in the UK, so I had a tendency to use British spellings. Normally that didn't pose much of a problem, until the fateful day I started writing variations of this fine C statement:
setbgcolor(somestructure.bgcolour);
I had headaches for weeks afterwards.
The very first program I ever wrote, it was all correct. Would have worked perfectly. Except the output - I had defined it to be LPO instead of LP0, so it didn't compile. I had to change that one card and re-submit the next day. Even more annoying, I'd written it correctly on the coding sheet but then punched my own cards instead of handing them in to be punched by the roomful of women (this was late 60s) dedicated to doing this.
ObMoan: You tell that to young people today and they don't believe you! :-)
I saved this bit of C a long time ago. I'll leave out the comments, which rather give the game away, but it is credited to Ian Phillipps, Cambridge Consultants Ltd
It's harmless, and SFW. If you cut/paste it you'll need to remove the blank lines (and only the blank lines)
#include <stdio.h>
main(t,_,a) char * a; { return!
0< t? t< 3? main(-79,-13,a+ main(-87,1-_, main(-86, 0, a+1 )
+a)): 1, t< _? main(t+1, _, a ) :3, main ( -94, -27+t, a ) &&t == 2 ?_
< 13 ? main ( 2, _+1, "%s %d %d\n" ) :9:16: t< 0? t< -72? main( _, t,
"@n'+,#'/*{}w+/w#cdnr/+,{}r/*de}+,/*{*+,/w{%+,/w#q#n+,/#{l,+,/n{n+,/+#n+,/#;\
#q#n+,/+k#;*+,/'r :'d*'3,}{w+K w'K:'+}e#';dq#'l q#'+d'K#!/+k#;\
q#'r}eKK#}w'r}eKK{nl]'/#;#q#n'){)#}w'){){nl]'/+#n';d}rw' i;# ){nl]!/n{n#'; \
r{#w'r nc{nl]'/#{l,+'K {rw' iK{;[{nl]'/w#q#\
\
n'wk nw' iwk{KK{nl]!/w{%'l##w#' i; :{nl]'/*{q#'ld;r'}{nlwb!/*de}'c ;;\
{nl'-{}rw]'/+,}##'*}#nc,',#nw]'/+kd'+e}+;\
#'rdq#w! nr'/ ') }+}{rl#'{n' ')# }'+}##(!!/") : t< -50? _==*a ?
putchar(31[a]): main(-65,_,a+1) :
main((*a == '/') + t, _, a + 1 ) : 0< t? main ( 2, 2 , "%s") :*a=='/'||
main(0, main(-61,*a, "!ek;dc i@bK'(q)-[w]*%n+r3#l,{}:\nuwloca-O;m .vpbks,fxntdCeghiry")
,a+1);}
" Even more annoying, I'd written it correctly on the coding sheet but then punched my own cards instead of handing them in to be punched by the roomful of women (this was late 60s) dedicated to doing this."
In the 1960s the company were producing 3rd generation mainframes and the software to go with them. One day a programmer submitted a job to test error paths for common mistakes and typos. When she received the printout the next day no errors had been flagged.
The punch room operator had corrected them as she punched the cards.
"Yes, there was a semicolon at the end of the statement."
Thats nothing compared to the fun you can have in python where someone accidentaly deletes a space or 2 from a line at the end of a block and thanks to the genius of whitespace having syntatic meaning its almost impossible to spot the bug since the program runs fine - it just doesn't work properly any more.
I worked with a lad who was an "experienced" coder in C. All of his programs were one long document. No spaces, no line breaks. His reason: It does two things.. speeds up compile time and the machine code is "clean" since it doesn't have to process white space. Needless to say, he was the only one who could maintain his code.
Face palm for obvious reason.
"It does two things.. speeds up compile time and the machine code is "clean" since it doesn't have to process white space. "
Probably his first programming experience was interpreted BASIC where most of that would actually be true. It might even be true for early BASIC compilers like BASCOM on 8-bit CP/M
"It does two things.. speeds up compile time and the machine code is "clean" since it doesn't have to process white space. "
Probably his first programming experience was interpreted BASIC where most of that would actually be true. It might even be true for early BASIC compilers like BASCOM on 8-bit CP/M
Back in the '70s APL programs where more memory efficient the more rectangular they where. Lines of code where stored as fixed length strings that where all as long as the longest line of code in the program. Yet one more way to make APL write only code, try to make all the lines of your program the same length.
A student wrote a program containing roughly:
if(char == '/') { // handle /
...
else if(char == '\') { // handle \
...
}
and was getting errors. The student assistant was mystified and so was I for a while until I remembered that the character \ deletes the end of line character so the next line was included in the comment.
I was testing a vendors system that we were implementing and noted that some "Tool Tip" functions didn't work (some "Tool Tip" functions did work). The vendor tested it and demonstrated that the system was working. I retested and still had an issue. I noticed that the vendor was using Google Chrome and I was testing with Internet Explorer as our company had some legacy systems that insisted on using IE so the default browser was IE. When I tested with Chrome the "Tool Tip" function worked where it didn't work in IE. As a programmer from way back I decided to investigate and inspect the HTML code. I found that the vendor failed to fully qualify the object in the code on some buttons. In IE the unqualified objects didn't work properly but in Chrome and Firefox they worked as expected. I reported my findings to the vendor and a patch was made overnight.
Simple coding discipline would have prevented the issue but someone at the vendor was lazy.
since many of them are French speakers
They may think they are French speakers, but in reality they are Canadian speakers. Canadian TV shows are often subtitled when shown on French TV. We once had a Quebecois in for a job interview in our French office, he was not happy that the French guys interviewed him in English because he was easier to understand that way...
The OED says: The form colour has been the most common spelling in British English since the 14th cent.; but color has also been in use continually, chiefly under Latin influence, since the 15th cent., and is now the prevalent spelling in the United States.
And if you're talking about the original spellings, here's the OED's list of recorded forms:
ME coleour, ME coleure, ME colewre, ME colovre, ME coulur, ME culur, ME kolour, ME–15 collore, ME–15 colowr, ME–15 colowre, ME–15 culoure, ME–16 coler, ME–16 coleur, ME–16 colore, ME–16 coloure, ME–16 colur, ME–16 colure, ME–16 cullour, ME–16 culour, ME– color (now U.S.), ME– colour, lME clour, lME (in a late copy) 15–16 collor, 15 colloure, 15 collyr, 15 cooler, 15 cooller, 15 coollor, 15 coollour, 15 coollur, 15 coolore, 15 cooloure, 15 coullar, 15 coulloure, 15 coulore, 15 cowler, 15–16 coller, 15–16 coolor, 15–16 coolour, 15–16 couler, 15–16 coullour, 15–16 coulor, 15–16 couloure, 15–16 culler, 15–16 cullor, 15–16 culloure, 15–17 collour, 15–17 couller, 15–17 coullor, 15–17 coulour; Sc. pre-17 coiller, pre-17 coller, pre-17 colleur, pre-17 collor, pre-17 collour, pre-17 colloure, pre-17 colore, pre-17 coloure, pre-17 colowr, pre-17 colowre, pre-17 colur, pre-17 couler, pre-17 couller, pre-17 coullour, pre-17 coulour, pre-17 culler, pre-17 cullor, pre-17 cullour, pre-17 culloure, pre-17 culour, pre-17 17–18 color, pre-17 17– colour.
The joy of finally all agreeing on a spelling is that we don't have to guess what a word is (coulor, culler, cullour etc) or need to sound it out to guess what is meant (is 'culler' meant to be colour or collar? let me read the sentence to see which fits) but can have the word go straight from eye to comprehension. Faster understanding and communication, and ambiguity and time-wasting are removed.
"As any fule kno..."
IIRC the "k" was sounded in words like "knife" in English in Shakespeare's time? In Swedish it still is in the exact equivalent "kniv".
When people have problems with some words starting "psy.." - it still amuses me to say "The P is silent - as in snow".
As a child from the frozen wastelands beyond the north of England, who's family moved south during his school age, I have experienced the blunt end of juvenile delight at the fact I made an audible pronunciation distinction between the nation 'Wales' and a school of 'Whales'.
I have also spent far more time than necessary attempting to determine the problem with an OAuth routine I was writing, which eventually turned out to be because I was passing a header requesting 'Authorisation'.
Oh what a frabjous day that was!
I think it depends where you grew up and who you learned your English from..
Or indeed from whom one learned English.
Would have chosen the Grammar Nazi icon but for a softening in my resolve against the mutation of the language - After all, it's not French!
"After all, it's not French!"
A neighbour's German girlfriend was an English teacher in Bavaria. One day she was talking about the mistakes her pupils made in examinations. One example was in using "From where do you come?". She said that she failed the pupil because he had used a German word order - rather than "Where do you come from?".
She was a bit disconcerted when we pointed out that it was a perfectly good - some would say a very good - English word order avoiding a dangling preposition.
The silent French H is long since gone from English, which seems to owe more to not wanting to drop our aitches ('arvy, arry, 'ill etc.) and sound common, even when they shouldn't actually be pronounced, than to deliberately avoiding French pronunciation. We see the h in hotel or herb, so we say it.
Well, Hadley Wickham implemented that only a few years back. Before it was always the non-American spelling (I find it strange to call it British when the Irish, Canadians, Aussies, Kiwis and likely many others use it - should be call it CE (Commonwealth English) ? ;) ).
"should be call it CE (Commonwealth English) ?"
IIRC there was a BBC R4 programme that examined the various forms of English in the Commonwealth. Some of them are almost incomprehensible to each other's native speakers - not by accent but by usage and grammar. Within their own cultures they have an evolved consistency.
I suspect Swedish/Norwegian/Danish speakers in the old Scandinavian immigrant parts of the USA use an archaic form of the language compared to the modern Scandinavian country forms. Even in Stockholm "Rinkeby"*** Swedish is becoming prevalent amongst the young. That is modern Swedish reformed through the influence of different immigrants' native languages' grammars and word order.
A person can sound fluent in a foreign language but their choice of certain word orders can reveal their origins. A strength of English for non-native speakers is that it still tends to make sense even when the word order is non-standard.
***Rinkeby being a suburb of Stockholm with a particularly high long-established immigrant population.
Used to alias common things like color-colour but when auto completion appeared in programmers editors it became just pointless extra work. Can't remember if we ever 'corrected' Sony's hilarious MargePrim to the intended MergePrim in the PSX devkit... Sony never did.
"Mind you, colo(u)r has to be one of the more phonetically incorrect spellings out there."
Along with "pour"?
Some of the apparently incorrect phonetics depend on which regional accents are common. The Tudor court received pronunciation (RP) of English was very different from the BBC RP in the 1930s - and again nowadays. Even HM The Queen has changed her pronunciation over the course of her reign.
What sort of environment doesn't give you a compile/link/runtime error for calling a function that doesn't exist ?
Or had Microsoft implemented a whole range of correctly-spelt functions & whatever that did almost, but not quite the same as the american-spelt ones ... just to be mean to the Canadians and Brits ?
"int y = x^2; /* square of x */"
It's not often I have to code that sort of calculation. Doing it this week I went through n**2 and then n^2 and Math.pow(n,2) - before the compiler finally accepted pow(n,2)
***Guess what inappropriate language I had to use to write system utilities in the 1960s.
> pow(n,2)
What's wrong with n*n ?
With pow(), if you're lucky your compiler will spot that the 2 is a constant and generate a multiply anyway. If you're unlucky it will do something horrible involving exp(). Less typing, works in every language, and better result to just write n*n.
Early in my C programming career, I wrote the equivalent of
switch (some_enum_variable)
{
constant_a:
some_code1();
break;
constant_b:
some_code2();
break;
constant_c:
some_code3();
break;
}
and spent many hours wondering why none of the branches ever activated... (no, the compiler did not even warn about this. It is syntactically perfectly correct C).
IIRC there is a C typo that gives one apparent iteration rather than 10
for (i=0; i<10; i++);
{
// do something 10 times
}
Someone once wrote a list of the 10 most common errors for someone starting to write in C - when they had been fluent in Pascal. IIRC Pascal FOR loops always did at least one iteration irrespective of the stated loop end condition.
Re the passer-by noticing the problem instantly: Back in the seventies I wandered past the electronics guy who had a very large sheet of paper pinned up showing a very intricate maze of components he was designing.
"What's this?" I asked. "Output converter for a non-standard Gray code".
"Oh. Err ... why can't you use a lookup table in an EPROM?" "Aaaargh!"
I was delighted by the revelation at college that you could implement logic functions from a mass of spaghetti wiring into a single chip solution by simply by using a multiplexer & tying up the inputs to +5 or 0V at college (Aided by a truth table).
I walked into a independent electronics store some years later with my notes while looking to create a circuit that would switch a Amstrad satellite receiver (SRD510 if memory serves), using the non existent 7 segment display (on that model) that any channel number over 50 would switch* on a 22KHz tone generator & switch to a second LNB for TV1000 & the like.
The shop assistant took one quick look at my notes & exclaimed "Blimey you really know your Boolean logic".
*I'm aware that there was a link (& fitted on my unit) on the board that would make it think it was a SRD520, that gave a switched output for driving an external frequency extender up to the full 2Ghz (There was also a later mod that gave that function without the use of an external frequency extender, possibly at the cost of some of the fine tuning of the frequency).
To be fair, years ago, I was on a customer site implementing a custom mail routing program. I spent an hour looking at a line that was something similar to :
/* output route type. N=Rooty. P=Tooty */
fprintf(filey,"Route type %c\n",cRouteType);
It crashed. Over, and over again. Eventually after an hour I rubbed my eyes, looked at it again, and realised the line actually said :
fprintf(filey,"Route type %s\n",cRouteType);
I saw what I wanted to see for far too long before seeing what was actually there.
To be fair to the failed colony, their weights and measures were the same as ours back then. We diverged.
My favourite oddity is that our pounds are the same, but an American (short) hundredweight is 100lb, but our (long) hundredweight is 112lb (8st) because we use stones and they don't.
Another is their saying "a pints a pound the world round" which only applies to the USA. In the rest of the world "A pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter" - because Americans men drink like British women *, their pints are smaller.
* Or it's because of the whole divergence thing.
There has been a down sizing in pints (20 - 16 floz) in Canadian pubs too.
Local pub dropped the price of beer, while shifting to the new size of pint, I think it worked out to a 10% drop in price & 20% less beer.
Good news though if you keep sweet with the barmaids, they still have a stock of the old glasses.
the country that officially went metric in the 1860
Yeahbut - metric is an evil system designed by the One World Government to oppress the people and Take Away Their Rights!
(Yes - I have had that said to me by someone from the US who was offended that I pointed out that the French[1] invented the metric system..)
[1] You know - the people who designed the political system later used by the nascent US and who provided weapons and military assistance to the rebellious colonists..
Ah yes, the semicolon. I was going to delete a month of data from a table, language in question was the SQL procedure in SAS (interpreted).
PROC SQL;
DELETE FROM HISTORY;
WHERE PERIOD = '199201';
Took forever, emptied the whole table, then gave me a syntax error for the last line. That semicolon on the DELETE line really shouldn't have been there.
Many years ago we had a small customer who was extremely unhappy because one of our products would occasionally (once every few weeks or months) lose a message. This was a rock-solid product, and despite months of debugging we couldn't reproduce the error. We had no idea if there was a real problem, or if the local support guys were no good, or if the customer was imagining it. Unfortunately the messages in this setup related to intruder detection, even one lost message was potentially serious. One Monday morning we came in to an ultimatum, "It's happened again. If I don't see an engineer in my office by the end of the week your kit is going in the river".
Said office was in Melbourne, I was the designated engineer and I was in Europe. The following day I was in Paris at the Australian embassy queueing for a fast track visa, Wednesday I was on a flight to Australia. 8am Friday morning I was picked up at the airport by the local support guy, taken to my hotel for a shower & to put my suit on (it was that sort of customer) and at 10am I was giving a very jetlagged introduction to the customer. The cost of my ticket may have exceeded the sale price of the product, but reputations were on the line. One good thing about this (for me) was that when you bought an economy-class ticket to Australia at almost no notice it was so expensive that I got bumped to Business class for the same price.
Customer was so happy to see a Real Engineer™ that he agreed we could start on Monday, so I had a weekend of sightseeing and wine tasting to recover from the journey.
On Monday we started debugging the live system, and mid-week had a breakthrough. Incoming messages were put in a small circular buffer, indexed by a variable i, the code was something like (this is simplified):
buf[i] = msgptr;
The code was fast, the buffer small and rarely required. The bug manifested when two messages arrived a mS apart, and the second one had to be put in the next buffer element. It should have worked, except for one little typo. The code was actually
buf[1] = msgptr;
both messages went into the same element, and the second message overwrote the first. My excuse was that we were using dot-matrix printers in those days, and a 1
looked like a lowercase i
.
It had to be my excuse, because I wrote that part of the original code...
When I returned a week later and owned up, my boss was less than impressed when he had to sign the expenses claim, but he signed it.
Nice one. I thought as I read through it that it would be a timing issue, had those too many times..
System is installed, works fine, then years later it fails. Why? It was configured to have a unique id keyed on time to millisecond granularity, and a system upgrade now meant that there could be multiple records every millisecond. Poor design - fixed by adding a random number, greater precision, and a check if I remember.
and a 1 looked like a lowercase i
In the long-ago far distant days when I pretended to be a programmer (as opposed to now pretending to do support) I very, very quickly learn to put cross-lines on 7's and slashes through zeros.
It only took one (fortunate) compile error where I'd misread my own handwriting and used a 1 instead of a 7 in an address pointer that would have caused a catastrophic dump..
"I very, very quickly learn to put cross-lines on 7's and slashes through zeros"
I learned to do that with zero when I started in computing. Then in 1970 I bought a jacket in a shop and paid with a cheque. The salesman looked at it - then asked me to initial my "correction that had changed 1971 to 1970".
IIRC a Z was also horizontally crossed to differentiate it from 2. Not sure about 5 and S - did one of them have short bar above/below?
It seems to have died out but it combined the elements of C, Fortran, and uniquely Canadian constructs. I can't remember all the details but programs looked sort of like this,
While beer>0 eh?
if needsbeer(hoser) eh
openbeer(hoser) eh
if beer < 3 eh
hoser<- buddy eh
fin
fin
It also came with the Hockey framework and the back bacon library.
I used to have a method for bugs in execution that apparently defied the "obvious" logic of the code being obeyed.
I pored over the code while drinking a glass of whisky. If I failed to spot the error when I had finished that drink - then I would pour another one and try again.
By the time I was on the third glass I was having to think very, very hard about what each statement actually did. If that didn't find the bug - then I went to bed. If I was really lucky the answer occurred to me as I woke up the next morning.
The first time that worked on the third glass my boss was pleased that a critical bug had been fixed - but didn't offer to replenish my whisky.
A long time ago (late 90's) when I was developing a website I came across something similar. I wanted to have some text to appear as grey. The browsers kept showing it in green. It turns out the US way to spell grey is gray and it appears that the browsers back then just looked at the first 3 letters of the colour. Therefore grey must be green.
But then, Americans also pronounce a Kilometre as "kill-ommiter" as though it is some sort of speedometer, instead of the proper (and Canadian) pronunciation "Kilo-Metre"
I'm waiting for them to start saying "Kill-oggram" for Kilogram, but they haven't fully figured out the metric system yet. Perhaps in another hundred or so years.
Strangely, the Brits have also started to use the American pronunciation "Kill-ommiter". Perhaps they will soon also pronounce the letter Z as "zee", and the Americanization of Britain will be complete.
I for for one, still pronounce that jugband the CANADIAN WAY! - as "Zed Zed Top"!
I was working the computer center's help desk back in college days, in a New England town. I was not from New England.
Someone asked for help with a FORTRAN program that wouldn't compile.
I pointed out that INTERGER may be fine New England pronunciation, but apparently the FORTRAN compiler spoke Middle American English.