Groups > comp.lang.java.programmer > #26590

Re: the true literal

From	Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject	Re: the true literal
Date	2013-11-23 21:23 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<l6r6dd$93u$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(4 earlier) <l6o81v$mpu$1@dont-email.me> <l6obvp$f6d$1@dont-email.me> <l6omfi$f8f$1@dont-email.me> <l6ql15$78s$1@dont-email.me> <l6r2vl$l95$1@news.albasani.net>

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On Sat, 23 Nov 2013 21:24:47 +0100, Sebastian wrote:

> Am 23.11.2013 17:27, schrieb Martin Gregorie:
>> On Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:38:58 -0500, Jeff Higgins wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/22/2013 02:39 PM, Jeff Higgins wrote:
>>>
>>>> ... I would tolerate a smug attitude up to a point.
>>>
>>> "... errant pedantry up with which I will not put."
>>> anon attrib to Winston Churchill
>>
>> But Churchill was being very specific about English grammar: he was
>> objecting to split infinitives, not pedantry or poor grammar in
>> general.
>>
>>
> and the attribution of this saying to Churchill is likely to be
> mistaken, see
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001715.html
>
It should be very simple to check Glenvil Hall's plea for clearer English 
anyway: if it was made in the House it will be printed in Hansard, for 
the Thursday before the 20th of March, 1948 or possibly a week earlier.

However, I'd find it very unlikely that Churchill made such a mistake: he 
was always very proud of the fact that the 'clever boys' at his school 
had to learn Latin and Greek but, as he wasn't one of them, he'd had to 
study English grammar instead and that this had served him better than 
learning Latin or Greek would have.

In any case, in the context of the current discussion it is quite 
irrelevant whether Churchill did or did not make that remark. As I said, 
it, regardless of who said it, is about the benefits or otherwise of 
using split infinitives. These are utterly irrelevant to Java and have 
nothing whatsoever to do with whether the reserved words true and false 
(or null for that matter) are predefined literals, identifiers or some 
other syntactic element.

-- 
martin@   | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org       |

Thread

Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-21 23:23 -0500
  Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-21 23:54 -0500
  Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-22 07:55 -0500
  Re: the true literal Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2013-11-22 09:37 -0500
    Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-22 11:07 -0500
      Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-22 11:53 -0500
        Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-22 12:11 -0500
          Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-22 12:24 -0500
            Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-22 12:37 -0500
      Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-22 13:08 -0500
      Re: the true literal Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2013-11-22 13:33 -0500
        Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-22 14:39 -0500
          Re: the true literal Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-11-22 17:38 -0500
            [OT] Re: the true literal Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2013-11-22 17:59 -0500
            Re: the true literal Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2013-11-23 16:27 +0000
              Re: the true literal Sebastian <news@seyweiler.dyndns.org> - 2013-11-23 21:24 +0100
                Re: the true literal Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2013-11-23 21:23 +0000
                Re: the true literal Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-11-27 13:51 -0800

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