Style: global configuration data

[Alex Martelli]

"Steve Williams" <sandj.williams at gte.net> wrote in message
news:3A0EF361.4F7FA244 at gte.net...
> Michael Hudson's sig block says:
>
> > 59. In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in
> >     our programming languages.
> >   -- Alan Perlis, http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html
>
> Lermontov's poem Parus (The Sail) starts out the with Russian word for
white
> (Byelo) used as a verb:
>
> (Byelyeet Parus odinaky. . .)
>
> Maybe Perlis knows how to 'verb' the word white, but I sure don't.
Shines?
> Glistens?  Glitters? Coruscates?  Bleaches?  Blanches?  Whites?  I don't
think
> so.

"Whitens" is one possibility -- while the transitive senses of the
verb "to whiten" are more common, it does have intransitive use,
too.  (Actually, "glistens" sounds better to me in this context,
but it's less literal, I think).


Alex