[OT] Re: PEP263 (Specifying encoding) and bytecode strings

[Steven Taschuk]

Quoth Tony Meyer:
  [...]
> I think this is because of my accounting background - I was thinking in
> terms of 'a decrease or loss in value' [1], rather than 'belittled' *or*
> 'disapproved'.  I see that 'disapproved' is the more accurate meaning,
> however.

Incidentally, despite their surface similarity in English, it
seems the words are unrelated: "depreciate" < Latin "pretium"
price, "deprecate" < Latin "precari", to pray.

"Pray?", I hear you ask.  Well, you see, the original meaning of
"deprecate" was "to avert by prayer", later generalized to "to
express disapproval of", and later still generalized to "to
disparage".  (The technical meaning we're all familiar with
nearest to the second of these, unless you choose to consider
deprecating a feature to be a way of praying to the BDFL that it
will go away.)  And this is not the end of the story -- the
word's meaning will be shifting again shortly, as an unintended
consequence of certain PSU activities.  The new meaning will be