Internationalization

[TheBeardedQuack]

Someone mentioned that often even spellings can change between small regions/states but I've never seen this in English as long as I've lived (but that's only a measly 18 years).

giblit wrote:

In the US where I live we say soda, some places they say pop and others they say soda pop. In the south they also say y'all instead of you all.

Erm, "soda" and "pop" are different words, not just different spellings =D
Here I meant how the actual spellings of many words are different just between US and UK English.
e.g. "colour", "nationalisation", etc

It's just so bloody irritating hearing the completely different pronunciations of words

helios wrote:

Yes, it's so bloody irritating that there are people out there who are different from you, isn't it? Nowadays you can't take a bus without having some black sit next to you like he has rights or something.

Woah, woah, woah... Not what I meant in the slightest...
It's more that I see that a language should be a standardised thing, where in ONE language the words should mean the same thing and should be spelled the same. I see it as kin of a corruption of a standardisation.
I have nothing against different ethnicities, languages and cultures. And of course if nothing was ever different then the world would be a boring place indeed.
But I feel some things, should be fixed... keywords and syntax in a particular programming language anyone?

[coder777]

chrisname wrote:

but horses can reproduce with donkeys and lions with tigers, so you have to add the addendum fertile offspring, which separates them because mules and ligers are not fertile. I don't know how that works with languages.

See esperanto:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

[z05DSL3A]

I like this:

The difference is fairly subtle

To Emigrate is to leave one country to settle in another. (The focus is on the original country)

To Immigrate is to come to a new country to live. (The focus is on the new country)

So if I were born in Ireland, and then migrated to the US, all of the below would be true and grammatical:

I emigrated from Ireland.

I immigrated to the US.

(Now the tricky bits)

I emigrated from Ireland to the US. (This focuses on the leaving bit)

I immigrated to the US from Ireland. (This focuses on the arriving bit)

And finally, relatives in Ireland might say:

Dusty emigrated to the US last year. (from their perspective, I left)

While new friends in the US:

Dusty immigrated to the US last year. (from their perspective, I arrived)

[helios]

Woah, woah, woah... Not what I meant in the slightest... [...] I have nothing against different ethnicities, languages and cultures. And of course if nothing was ever different then the world would be a boring place indeed.

It may not have been what you meant, but it's all part of the same overall thought process.

It's more that I see that a language should be a standardised thing, where in ONE language the words should mean the same thing and should be spelled the same. I see it as kin of a corruption of a standardisation. [...] But I feel some things, should be fixed... keywords and syntax in a particular programming language anyone?

A language only works like this once no one is speaking it, and thus there's no more need to add anything to it or take anything out of it. A living language is in a state of constant update to efficiently express new ideas, which may be directly related to the speaker's surroundings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_linguistics

[NoXzema]

helios, really dude, it's not even close to the same mindset.

It is not frustrating to have a diverse society when you realize that each ethnicity has the same potential as any other. There are of course exceptions but that doesn't justify hating or having a mindset against a certain ethnicity.

While grammar on the other hand is how we communicate (not even the same category... a "boy, that escalated quickly" moment). It's frustrating that I cannot move into France and be able to freely communicate with everyone. It's just as frustrating that two seemingly similar languages makes one incorrect in a certain context. There's no question about it, it's fact.

You're implying someone uses the same mindset as someone who is blatantly racist because they're frustrated by the *fact* that grammar isn't as simple or clear as it could be in a certain context.

I hope I made my point clear. Not to mention how silly comparing the two in the first place is.

[helios]

No. SatsumaBenji wasn't complaining about grammar. He was complaining specifically about the way Americans pronounce words, regardless of whether in their own dialect their particular usage would be correct. That's what's generally known as xenophobia.

[BHX]

It is a similar mindset, unfortunately, because if you start standardizing pronunciation, groups will be formed and discrimination will take root. History, and current events show this will happen time and time again.

[ResidentBiscuit]

SatsumaBenji wrote:

It's more that I see that race should be a standardised thing, where in ONE race is the correct race. I see it as kind of a corruption of a standardisation.

I don't particularly mind the corruption of the race too much (I think) ... And it's even worse when I see actual people of other races and they're constantly trying to be different. That just infuriates me...

[NoXzema]

Standardizing pronunciation wasn't mentioned a single time BHX...

It's not xenophobia whenever he provides reasoning as to why he doesn't like it. What? He even explained his meaning and you're twisting that meaning and claiming it's similar to racism. That's straight up stupid.

[TheBeardedQuack]

Well... It seems like at least NoXzema has some idea of what I'm trying to say, unlike helios whom is telling everyone what it is I mean when it's not at all what I mean. -_-

helios wrote:

SatsumaBenji wasn't complaining about grammar. He was complaining specifically about the way Americans pronounce words, regardless of whether in their own dialect their particular usage would be correct.

No. Well I wasn't really talking about grammer, but I don't really care about accents (pronunciation), dialect and word usage (well if it is grammatically incorrect then yeah, but so shouldn't everyone)...
I am more on about the actual language itself, the words, not the people.
One word should be just one word, granted it might have multiple meanings but it shouldn't have 2 or in some cases 3 (or more) ways of spelling just one word.
canceled/cancelled, color/colour, favorite/favourite, neighbor/neighbour, analyze/analyse, lazer/laser, behavior/behaviour, cozy/cosy, authorize/authorise, the list goes on and on... But this is still supposed to be the same language?

helios wrote:

A language only works like this once no one is speaking it, and thus there's no more need to add anything to it or take anything out of it. A living language is in a state of constant update to efficiently express new ideas, which may be directly related to the speaker's surroundings.

Don't really see how you're linking this into my point... Yes I understand that languages adapt and change and words enter and leave common vocabulary... But the same thing happens with anything other kind of standards, they adapt to what works the best at that time... But I wouldn't expect to see 2 symbols (words) attached to the same definition, if you can understand that?

BHX wrote:

It is a similar mindset, unfortunately, because if you start standardizing pronunciation, groups will be formed and discrimination will take root. History, and current events show this will happen time and time again.

Interesting... Again it's pronunciation that I'm really on about, but how would you come to this conclusion over the standardisation of a language?

[ResidentBiscuit]

SatsumaBenji wrote:

... but I don't really care about accents (pronunciation) ... Again it's pronunciation that I'm really on about ...

So, which is it then?

[giblit]

canceled/cancelled, color/colour, favorite/favourite, neighbor/neighbour, analyze/analyse, lazer/laser, behavior/behaviour, cozy/cosy, authorize/authorise, the list goes on and on... But this is still supposed to be the same language?

We have a different dialect of English, deal with it. Does it really matter that we don't put in the extra 'u' and use 'z' instead of 's'?

[z05DSL3A]

George Bernard Shaw wrote:

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.

[TheBeardedQuack]

ResidentBisuit wrote:

So, which is it then?

SatsumaBenji wrote:

I don't really care about accents (pronunciation), dialect and word usage (well if it is grammatically incorrect then yeah, but so shouldn't everyone)...
I am more on about the actual language itself, the words, not the people.

... Did you only read that one line?

EDIT:

giblit wrote:

We have a different dialect of English, deal with it. Does it really matter that we don't put in the extra 'u' and use 'z' instead of 's'?

Unfortunately this post makes a lot more sense than everyone else, I was just trying to share my opinion before everyone jumped on me, and I'm just merely trying to reiterate. I believe we should have a standardised language but the fact is that it broke up and we don't, and yeah I do just have to deal with it and fair enough to you on that good sir.

[BHX]

SatsumaBenji wrote:

Interesting... Again it's pronunciation that I'm really on about, but how would you come to this conclusion over the standardisation of a language?

SatsumaBenji wrote:

It's just so bloody irritating hearing the completely different pronunciations of words (like big changes, not just accent) and completely different words in place, or even the misspelling of words...

SatsumaBenji wrote:

It's more that I see that a language should be a standardised thing,...

Seeing as you are wanting to standardize language and was also ranting about pronunciation, it wasn't too had of a conclusion to draw.

[TheBeardedQuack]

Fair enough, suppose I shot myself in the foot their, but again I didn't really mean the pronunciation, that was a mistake while I was ranting. But still.

[BHX]

It's okay, I'm perfectly fine with misunderstandings. Glad we cleared it up before it broke into a tangent that obviously doesn't need to be discussed.

[Duthomhas]

Tangents?
Differentiation?

Is it too late to integrate this thread?

[TwilightSpectre]

On an interesting side note, something I discovered yesterday is that the American accent is older than the 'Queens' British accent. Something that linguists call the 'Great Vowel Distortion' occurred in 17th or 18th century England, but not in America. The 'Queens' British accent only dates from about the 1830's.

This came up when I was talking to a friend about spelling - why, in English the spellings are often unrelated to their correct pronunciations, especially for place names in England and the like. I thought it was quite interesting.

@Duoas: But how would we solve for C?

[Duthomhas]

LOL for like five minutes!

Also,

#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>

int main()
{
  float a = 3;
  float b = 4;
  float c = sqrt( a*a + b*b );
  printf( "%f", c );
  return 0;
}