Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Keith Thompson Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: typedef ... refactored Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2020 13:23:01 -0700 Organization: None to speak of Lines: 29 Message-ID: <87bljdx9i2.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com> References: <7a5f16a3-d30d-46ec-9926-b0736428902do@googlegroups.com> <20200813005227.b02c40b51ddf5ad71c7ca82b@gmail.com> <4yyZG.1646292$6_j.1423379@fx37.ams4> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="9f3455e9a718163ce4105e79bc2a7323"; logging-data="15890"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+C5HtxYMajgELwK3mFrW2V" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/26.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:GfG7EFNFfLYCtZZeQftqxmi/gAI= sha1:stq8y52wN/co7GLpKutG5sc1j4U= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:153654 David Brown writes: > On 14/08/2020 17:59, Bart wrote: [...] >> That begs the question of why they need their own namespace. > > (Nitpick - "begs the question" does not mean what you think it means.) [...] Nitpick - there is no longer a widely agreed meaning of that phrase. The real problem IMHO is that "begs the question" is a lousy translation of the Latin "petitio principii", which in turn was a lousy translation of the original Greek "τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς". The original meaning is "assumes the conclusion". A common modern meaning is "raises the question" (which makes more sense given the English phrase). I don't think we'll ever get everyone to agree on a meaning. My personal solution is to avoid the phrase, and instead say "assumes the conclusion" or "raises the question", depending on which one I actually mean. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com Working, but not speaking, for Philips Healthcare void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */