English Idiom in Unix: Directory Recursively

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 30 May 2011 23:04:41 +0200, Rikishi42 wrote:

> On 2011-05-28, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think it's geographic. This list covers a lot of geography; I'm in
>> Australia, there are quite a few Brits, and probably the bulk of posts
>> come from either the US or Europe. (And yes, I did deliberately fold
>> all of Europe down to one entity, and I did also deliberately leave
>> Great Britain out of that entity.)
> 
> I allways found that odd. Especially if you're talking geography, not
> politics. I can understand they want to be seen as independant, even
> they are in it enough to allways opose anything someone else suggests. 
> :-)
> 
> To me, saying the UK isn't part of Europe, is like saying Japan isn't
> part of Asia. Oh by the way, I'm Belgian.

In my experience, the Japanese have the same attitude towards Asia as the 
British have towards Europe: they will claim membership, or deny it, 
depending on whichever suits their mood at the time.


>> Most things work out that way. A thing gets a name based either on its
>> implementation or on the brand name of the first/most popular one. If
>> the only microwave oven ever produced had been made by Foobar Corp, and
>> that company were not known for anything else, then quite possibly
>> everyone would call them "foobar ovens".
> 
> Yeah, when I was a kid a photo camera was called a Kodak.

Sometimes brand names do become generic. "Personal Computer" once was a 
specific IBM model, not just a description. Elevator and escalator were 
once brandnames. In some parts of the southern USA, "coke" is used as a 
word for any softdrink, not just Coca Cola.


-- 
Steven