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ruschein@mail-infomine.ucr.edu (Johannes Ruscheinski) writes: > > Call it a neologism; it's quite widely used among programmers, anyway. > > Most programmers don't know how to spell either. Btw., I've been a > programmer for over 20 years. Just because people don't know any > better does not necessarily make it correct. Well, actually, it does -- that's the nature of language. Anyway, the real point is (1) whether or not people understand what it means, and (2) is it a `gratuitous' invention, in the sense that its being used by only a very few people in place of a more commonly accepted word, _only_ because of ignorance. I don't think (1) is an issue, since canonicalize is a straight-forward construction; indeed, since the usual meaning of `canonize' is the one I quoted, I guarantee that using it to mean `make canonical' will get you a few puzzled looks. As for (2), I can't speak for the wider population, but as I said, I've heard `canonicalize' used by programmers quite often, whereas I've never, ever, heard `canonize' used in this context. I think one reason for its popularity is that it has a sort of charmingly tongue-twisting sound to it, and I suspect many people use it because of that even though they realize it's `not quite right.' IOW, there's a good reason for its use, beyond the mere ignorance of a few. Anyway, my take: keep canonicalize, it's hip, it's now. :-| -Miles -- Next to fried food, the South has suffered most from oratory. -- Walter Hines Page - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ | |||||||||
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