Selling on eBay UK?

My Latin teacher would be turning in his grave, the one I probably helped send him to.

I believe my progress in Latin was described as abysmal. At the time I had to look up abysmal, but I have improved since then.

I couldn't get the link to work - it came up as an invalid page.

I've fixed the link

Very interesting article, thanks for posting the link.

If there were one, Ebay wouldn't be a monopoly.

G

I should just like to point out that Wikipaedia (as it should be called) is an American invention, and when they say "English" they are referring to the debased dialect uttered in the Dysfunctional States.

In proper English we do still tend to distinguish between the singular and plural forms of Latin and Greek words. We do not, unlike Microsoft, say "a media" or "a criteria".

However, on this occasion I think Wikipedia is correct. "Viri" and "fora" are not much used, even in this sceptred islet. And in not using them we are simply accepting that these are proper English words, where a singular becomes plural by adding an "s".

"A media" on the other hand, is an abomination. "Media" is the plural form of "medium", so if these nitwits want to abandon Latin plurals, the way to do it is to say "mediums". Like "viruses".

G, the irascible pedant.

G,
I am glad that I am not the only one that gets upset with the murder of the English language! I have had to teach many university students to fly and it seems these days that spelling and grammar are optional extras that few elect to participate in.

Kim

Indeed, sadly too few.

Sorry Kim i don't mean too sound picky BUT

I have been around students for too long!
Apart from which, I can't type.
Kim

While we're on the subject...

You cannot attribute compatibility in computer systems and the Internet to Microsoft. And "absolute compatibility" is laughable.

Over the years, Microsoft has gone out of its way to introduce incompatibilities (extensions, they often call them but often just misinterpretations) to existing standards in an effort to tie people into their products.

When Microsoft dominated the browser market, they used their position to simply extend and distort the Web standards in any way they fancied, forcing web designers to disregard the standards and follow the Microsoft way if they wanted their sites to look reasonable.

It is only the efforts of teams of programmers dedicated to supporting standards that Firefox and Konqueror - the two good open source browsers - that have forced Microsoft to step in line. IE7 is still a mess but at least it follows the standards a bit more closely than IE6 and earlier.

Microsoft has used similar techniques with other Internet and non-Internet related standards including the email protocols, security protocols, the domain name system and, recently, their laughable efforts to buy a dominant position on the ISO standards board.

So keen were they that their competing standard to the already adopted ODF (Open Document Format) be approved that they recruited numerous new members to the board to vote on the matter. Nevertheless, OOXML, as it is called, failed to be voted in and their efforts to buy that standard have so far failed.

Why do we need another open document standard when we already have ODF? Simple: ODF isn't Microsoft's and it limits their ability to tie companies to their brands.

So be under no illusion that Microsoft is any sort of force for good when it comes to standards and compatibility. It isn't and I could fill many posts with summaries of their antics.

There is an interesting follow on from this OOXML fiasco. Having enrolled a large number of new members into the ISO committee whose sole interest was voting this one standard through, ISO now finds itself severely disabled as it is unable to reach a quorum for voting on recent business because none of the new members turn up.

I understand what you are saying, but by "absolute compatibility" (apart from being slightly tongue-in-cheek) I was really referring to the users.

That is, we could all sit down in front of each other's computers and happily use them, knowing exactly what was going on.

Compatibility as regards programs is of course something else entirely.

Would anyone ever say "datum"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datum As someone who works in IT, I always find it strange that I would never be comfortable using the grammatically correct word "datum".

Whilst I have a pedantic tendency myself, I recently read "Amo, amas, amat and all that" (see http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1958659,00.html ) and thoroughly enjoyed the description of Latin w*nkers... people who use Latin to make themselves seem more intelligent by quoting in Latin without explaining what their quotation means. Then again, can we ever beat "Eats, shoots and leaves" for challenging overponcyness (my word!)?

[quote="wintoid"]I don't often find ocassion to use "Datum", but it is a perfectly good word. If you were a sailor you would be familiar with "chart datum", the base from which tide heights are measured.

G