The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding

[David Kastrup]

bcd at pvv.ntnu.no (Bent C Dalager) writes:

> In article <l0h7g3tqsgjs948i5o2pb0u2m87m2hbtf0 at 4ax.com>,
> George Neuner  <gneuner2/@comcast.net> wrote:
>>On Wed, 3 Oct 2007 09:36:40 +0000 (UTC), bcd at pvv.ntnu.no (Bent C
>>Dalager) wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>Only if you're being exceedingly pedantic and probably not even
>>>then. Webster 1913 lists, among other meanings,
>>>
>>>Free
>>>(...)
>>>"Liberated, by arriving at a certain age, from the control
>>>of parents, guardian, or master."
>>>
>>>The point presumably being that having been "liberated", you are now
>>>"free".

Not as much "been" liberated, but "turned" liberated.

>>Dictionaries used to be the arbiters of the language - any word or
>>meaning of a word not found in the dictionary was considered a
>>colloquial (slang) use.  Since the 1980's, an entry in the
>>dictionary has become little more than evidence of popularity as the
>>major dictionaries (OED, Webster, Cambridge, etc.) will now consider
>>any word they can find used in print.
>
> Apparantly, you missed the part where I referred to the 1913 edition
> of Webster. I have kept it in the quoted text above for your
> convenience. I can assure you that 1913 is both more than 30 years
> ago /and/ it is before 1980, in case that was in doubt.

But picking just a single word from a whole explanation of _one_
naming and declaring it as equivalent is not really being careful with
language at all.

And even when using a Thesaurus, it should be clear that the offered
alternatives are not supposed to or capable of capturing all nuances
of the keyword.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum