Dulce, utile, et decorum est pro patria scribere.
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Put on Your NerdCaps
Mike Sykes explains how CamelCase is useful in programming:
The short answer is that have to think of names for things (variables, labels, files), and for clarity, which is important, one often needs more than one word, as in "last entry", "middle initial". Spaces are not allowed inside a name (except in Microsoft file names where they were a serious mistake in my view). Hyphens can be mistaken for minus signs (though they're allowed in Cobol). Underscores are on upshift* which is not only a nuisance, but they take up space as well as looking awful. So lastEntry is an easy way of making the name is easier to understand — at least as easy as last_entry. And names may be quite long; SetTitleMatchMode, ChangeButtonNames are genuine examples.
The long answer is in Wikipedia.
*That extra cap is also on upshift (which we just call Shift in the US).
Remember when PC file names had to be no more than eight characters long? And no spaces.
Wikipedia says “this article calls the two alternatives upper camel case and lower camel case. Some people and organizations use the term camel case only for lower camel case.” But wouldn’t lower camel case be a broke-back camel?
Other synonyms are:
· BumpyCaps or BumpyCase
· CamelBack (or camel-back) notation
· CamelCaps
· CamelHump
· CapitalizedWords or CapWords for upper camel case in Python
· ClCl (Capital-lower Capital-lower) and sometimes ClC
· compoundNames
· HumpBack (or hump-back) notation
· InterCaps or intercapping
· InternalCapitalization
· LeadingCaps for upper camel case
· mixedCase for lower camel case in Python
· NerdCaps
· Pascal case for upper camel case
· RollerCoasterCaps
· WikiWord or WikiCase (especially in wikis)
My favorite is NerdCaps, which would make a great name for a new line of head gear.
Bad Sex in Fiction Award
A new literary contest! I didn’t know about the Bad Sex Award (at least in literature). Jonathan Littell, who won the Prix Goncourt in 2006 for The Kindly Ones, has won the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award for the same book. This is the kind of writing that earned Littell the prize:
'I came suddenly, a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg.'
The physiology alone…
Should I have added a warning at the beginning of that paragraph? Could that passage be considered in any way adult, or conducive to lustful imaginings? You can find more at the Literary Review web site, and (warning) it is much more graphic, as they say, and also very bad writing. But could it be called pornographic when it’s so much more likely to make the reader become celibate than lustful? “Why does your god deny you this?” asks someone in one of the rejected literary samples. Because it’s lousy writing, which means lousy thinking, which makes for lousy sex. It makes one long for the old days of the line of asterisks that indicated a steamy literary interlude.
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Particle Verbs
Rich Lederer wrote:
Here are some additional thoughts on phrasal verbs, which I have been calling particle verbs.
First, you can distinguish phrasal verbs from prepositional phrases by seeing how the particle behaves when reconfigured. Thus, "Up the chimney I looked" is a somewhat recognizable English sentence, but "Up the word I looked" is an absurdity. Conclusion: In "I looked up the chimney," "up" is a preposition and "up the chimney" is a prepositional phrase. But in "I looked up the word," "up" is a particle and part of a phrasal verb.
Additional proof is the pronoun placement rule. "I looked the word up" and "I looked up the word" are both recognizable English sentences. So is "I looked it up." But note that "I looked up it" is not natural English. Conclusion: In English statements, pronouns can almost always replace nouns, but often they can't if a phrasal verb is involved.
“I looked up the chimney” is also different from “I looked up Mary when I was in town”; these are idiomatic. But somehow phrases like “Up the word I looked” me of Pennsylvania Dutch (or Deutsch/German), where you might see something like “KEEP THE PAINT OFF” (wet paint)!
Herb Hickman asked this:
Do you have a name for the practice in which a verb, or verb plus its object, are repeated for the sole purpose of adding an adverb? I've come to think of it as to Five-Oh the verb, under the vague suspicion that the TV show "Hawaii Five Oh" writers invented it. "We've got to move and move fast!" "Hit 'em and hit 'em hard!" "Find it and find it fast!" Annoy him and annoy him without ceasing.
I would just call it repetition for emphasis, but perhaps there is a rhetorical term. Rich? I don’t think the Five-Oh writers invented it, but at the moment I can’t come up with earlier examples. I’m sure you’d find them in all the old cowboy movies, which I watched devotedly as a child. In fact it sounds nearly Shakespearean.
On the Radio
-///- At the end of a computer radio program: “Happy computering!” — not computing. Ordinarily I would think this is a case of using an invented verb and forgetting the perfectly good verb already available, but not so. “Computing” means either calculating, or whatever it is that the computer does faster than you do. “Computering” here means using the computer and its applications.
-///- On a radio segment discussing an odious pair of child molesters, a prosecutor said “mopery” is the correct police term for such crimes, and a “mope” is a molester. These terms are rarely used in ordinary conversation or literature, and are not found on my usual online dictionaries. Wikipedia gives them a different, more general definition. But I’d believe the police when they talk about their own words.
-///- Another crime report: A man busted for operating a meth lab faces “enhanced charges” because a child was present. “Enhanced” almost always means improved rather than increased but apparently the distinction between quality and quantity isn’t always clear with this word in some people’s minds, and indeed a greater penalty can seem like a better penalty.
Christmas Books
Tim Bazzett writes:
Just wanted to let you know that all of my books at RatholeBooks.com have been drastically reduced in price for the holidays. Please click on the website for details. If you want any of the books for Christmas, you must order soon. All four books are also available on Amazon, but not at these prices, and all books ordered direct from RatholeBooks will be personally inscribed and signed.
Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season.
All the best,
Wa…?
A former student of mine from an African country I don’t recall wrote this on his Facebook page (not to me):
wa gaa lolou moom wakh nanou ko koi: dereum ak dereum moom noo meneu andd. Wa nii nakk nioom niooy niann?
He also speaks English and French. I don’t know what this language is and there’s no online translator for it. It seems to have been a comment on a photo of three rather glamorous young African women. Intriguing.
Remember Pearl
Today is Pearl Harbor Day. After WWII, my dad returned from the South Pacific after a few years on the aircraft carrier Intrepid, and brought home some souvenirs, one of which was a doll-sized pair of underpants imprinted with “Remember Pearl.”
The Weekly Gizzard: Moi on Examiner.com
Raw data about CRU and the peer-review process
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Most of us think science, its methods and results, are clear-cut and, most important, true. If scientists...
CAIR reports an increase in nothing to see here
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
Today's Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Karen Dabdoub, executive director of the Cincinnati office of the...
Abortion and public health insurance: paying for someone else's morality
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
In a letter to the editor in today’s Cincinnati Enquirer, the writer insisted that the government has no...
President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez has doubts about whether or not Idi Amin of Uganda was really so bad. Was he...
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ONLINE PUBS
I’m publishing for the Kindle digital reader with Amazon and now also on Lulu.com for download to computer and for printing. Most of these titles are available in both locations. Search for Rhonda Keith on Amazon.com Kindle store and Lulu.com.
The Man from Scratch is about cloning, escort services, murder, and restaurants in Akron, Ohio, featuring Roxy Barbarino, writer for Adventuress Magazine. Novel.
A Walk Around Stonehaven is a travel article on my trip to Scotland. Short article with photos. (Lulu.com only.)
The Wish Book is fantasy-suspense-romance featuring the old Sears Roebuck catalogues. Novella.
Carl Kriegbaum Sleeps with the Corn is about a young gambler who finds himself upright in a cornfield in Kansas with his feet encased in a tub of concrete; how would you get out of a spot like that? Short story.
Still Ridge is about a young woman who moves from Boston to Appalachia and finds there are two kinds of moonshine, the good kind and the kind that can kill you. Short story.
Whither Spooning? asks whether synchronized spooning can be admitted to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Humorous sports article.
Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Cats: One woman's tale of menopause, in which I learn that the body is predictive; I perceive that I am like my cat; and I find love. Autobiographical essay.
Parvum Opus Volume I. The first year (December 2002 through 2003). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get PO’ed. Collection of columns.
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No Pain, No Pain
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If you're so smart why aren't you me?
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Trivium pursuit ~ rhetoric, grammar, and logic, or reading, writing, and reckoning: Parvum Opus discusses language, education, journalism, culture, and more. Parvum Opus by Rhonda Keith is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Editorial input provided by Fred Stephens. Rhonda Keith is a long-time writer, editor, and English teacher. Back issues from December 2002 may be found at http://www.geocities.com/
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