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Old October 2nd 05, 07:27 PM
Floyd Davidson
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Jeremy Nixon wrote:
Floyd Davidson wrote:

It does not necessarily have to be that one grew out of the
other. However, I *don't* see them as totally unrelated.
Rather, it is a logical progression.


When you have two terms that mean different things, and you change one of
them to mean the same thing as the other, that's not progression, it's
regression. It's entropy. It's loss of meaning and precision for absolutely
no good reason -- there was no need to change the meaning of the term, since
another perfectly good one already existed.


Right, but since that is *not* what happened, what's the point?

And now you have what used to be a perfectly good term, "prime lens", that,
having become ambiguous, is now *useless* for *either* of the meanings we
are talking about here. It is a dead term. It can't be used to mean


Why would you say that? Prime had several meanings long before
this happened, and yet you say it was not ambiguous then but is
now???? That's not logical.

"fixed focal length" because that's stupid and it doesn't mean that; and


Clearly it *does* mean that and *is* being commonly used with
that meaning more often than not.

it can't be used with its original meaning because everyone thinks it
means something else.


And just as clearly it *is* still sometimes being used with the
previous meaning (which is *not* "its original meaning"). As
with the other various meanings, context is everything...

Not every change in language is "evolution", or anything approaching a good
thing.


You need to look up the word "evolution" and find out what it
means. And as to whether change is "a good thing", that is
subjective and your opinion that it is not really isn't worth a
plugged nickel. (Neither is mine, so don't be upset that the
world continues to turn even if we don't like it.)

The changes made by marketing people, for example, are always bad.


As a guy who worked my whole life in Operations (and never
stopped making fun of Marketing), even I have to tell you that
you've over stated the case there.

Marketing is responsible for more abuses of our language than anything else.


We can probably agree on that one! But that doesn't mean I'm
not going to accept that those changes are *fact*.

Evolution adds something; all this does is remove.


You can try to justify your bias with false statements like that
one all you like, but the world still turns, and language
evolution continues...

--
FloydL. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)