Author Topic: what I have learned today.  (Read 847261 times)

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2875 on: 04 November, 2018, 07:56:04 am »
A loose clothing and rotating machinery kind of situation.
A marginally less stylish Isadora Duncan moment.
Quote from: Kim
^ This woman knows what she's talking about.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2876 on: 04 November, 2018, 07:05:38 pm »
That in 1895 George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell collided with each other while cycling from Tintern to Trellech. This was probably less stylish than Isadora Duncan too, but also less fatal.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2877 on: 05 November, 2018, 08:34:36 am »
A coming-together of great minds.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2878 on: 06 November, 2018, 10:04:03 am »
That in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot an Observance of the 5th of November Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observance_of_5th_November_Act_1605) was passed. "It required church ministers to hold a special service of Thanksgiving annually on 5 November, during which the text of the act was to be read out loud."
The act was repealed in 1859.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2879 on: 11 November, 2018, 02:00:25 pm »
MrsT's grandmother's brother-in-law was killed by a sniper as he was going up the gangway onto the boat to go home, on 12th November 1918.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Auntie Helen

  • 6 Wheels in Germany
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2880 on: 15 November, 2018, 06:00:09 am »
I still really struggle with German numbers in a hurry as they are backwards. On the phone at work someone tells me their number and it is: null sieben eins vierundzwanzig neununddreißig zweiundziebzig, which sounds like 0719429327 but is actually 071243972. Four-and-twenty nine-and-thirty two-and-seventy.

I remember my grandmother used to say “it’s five-and-twenty past four” so it’s not completely unfamiliar. However, today someone pointed out that English still does it too now: thir-teen, six-teen, eight-teen. I had never noticed that before!
My blog on cycling in Germany and eating German cake – http://www.auntiehelen.co.uk


Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2881 on: 15 November, 2018, 07:59:11 am »
Regarding numbers, in the Suisse Romande they speak a dialect of French which has features from a long time ago.

60 soixante
70 septant
80 huitante
90 nonante

Much, much easier adnt o me more logical  than quatre-vingts etc.

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2882 on: 15 November, 2018, 08:31:43 am »
Regarding numbers, in the Suisse Romande they speak a dialect of French which has features from a long time ago.

60 soixante
70 septant
80 huitante
90 nonante

Much, much easier adnt o me more logical  than quatre-vingts etc.

Except, if you are comfortable with the standard this version is REALLY confusing.

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2883 on: 15 November, 2018, 09:43:29 am »
Belgian French does the same
"No matter how slow you go, you're still lapping everybody on the couch."

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2884 on: 15 November, 2018, 12:13:56 pm »
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)

Tim Hall

  • Victoria is my queen
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2885 on: 15 November, 2018, 12:17:55 pm »
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)

+1

Or should that be 00 1?
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can
"overhaul" it, or you can ride it.  (Jerome K Jerome)

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2886 on: 15 November, 2018, 12:23:32 pm »
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)
But we're already in that debate. The correct punctuation in German is in pairs. Except for the first three digits, it seems.
071243972
"Oh Seven One Twenty-four Thirty-nine Seventy-two"
Perhaps Auntie H knows why they don't say "Oh Seventy-one"?
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Pingu

  • Put away those fiery biscuits!
  • Mrs Pingu's domestique
    • the Igloo
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2887 on: 15 November, 2018, 12:37:10 pm »
Vierundzwanzig Amseln.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2888 on: 15 November, 2018, 12:49:30 pm »
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)
But we're already in that debate. The correct punctuation in German is in pairs. Except for the first three digits, it seems.
I doubt it... *googles*

Yep, variable length area codes, subscriber numbers that can go down to 2 digits, so their dialplan is even more of a mess than ours:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Germany


Of course in the real world cellular users and most people under the age of about 40 only ever dial the fully-qualified number, and the old people who still dial subscriber numbers manually will recognise their own area code.  So it's only really telecoms engineers who have to care about dialplans who actually *need* to get the punctuation right.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2889 on: 15 November, 2018, 12:58:07 pm »
What do you doubt, Kim? When I was a child, our phone number was four digits. It was <area code> 3463. I think the area code had six digits including the initial 0. Point is, the phone number 3463 is said in English as separate digits "three four six three" whereas in German it's said as two pairs "thirty-four sixty-three". This is what is causing confusion to Auntie H, along with the way German puts units before tens in those pairs. I have a feeling French treats phone numbers in pairs too, but as they do their tens and units in the same order as us it's probably less of a problem. Except for the Germans, of course.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2890 on: 15 November, 2018, 01:08:23 pm »
Regarding numbers, in the Suisse Romande they speak a dialect of French which has features from a long time ago.

60 soixante
70 septant
80 huitante
90 nonante

Much, much easier adnt o me more logical  than quatre-vingts etc.

Ditto the Belgians, who also use savoir and pouvoir in slightly different contexts from the French, e.g. both would say "je ne sais pas nager", meaning "I don't know how to swim", but whereas someone French who can't find a seat might say "je ne peux pas m'asseoir", a Belgian similarly discommoded could come out with "je ne sais pas m'asseoir".

I reckon that "quatre-vingt" & its buddies come from counting on fingers & toes. Apparently it comes from the Celts, who applied it for any number greater than 20.

http://www2.ac-lyon.fr/ressources/loire/mathematiques/spip.php?article75
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2891 on: 15 November, 2018, 01:12:47 pm »
Anyway, what I learnt today is that the word toxic comes from the Greek toxikon pharmakon, meaning poison for arrows. We retain the bit that means arrows to mean poison, whereas the real poison is the pharmakon bit.

Kinda pithy, that.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2892 on: 15 November, 2018, 01:24:56 pm »
What do you doubt, Kim?

I doubt that the German phone system parses numbers as multiple pairs.  It clearly doesn't - it has a variable-length area code and a variable-length subscriber code, much like ours does (though the total length is less consistent).  To correctly punctuate a German number you'd write "(0[area code]) [subscriber number]" or "+49 [area code] [subscriber number]" just like you would in the UK - so the reader knows which part(s) they can omit.  My limited experience suggests that German signwriters are just as ignorant of how phone numbers work as British ones are, often inserting random spaces and dashes in the interests of clarity over semantics.  I'm not familiar enough with German phone numbers to know whether they actively break the semantics like Brits often do with London numbers ("(0207) xxxxxxx").

Reading out pairs of digits as discrete numbers is nothing to do with the phone system, it's just a cultural (in)convenience.

My understanding is that the French telephone system has no concept of area codes and subscriber numbers:  The first two digits are geographical, but you always have to dial the full number (which Googlepedia informs me is always 10 digits).  As there's no meaningful way to punctuate the number, they always write them as 5 two-digit numbers, as they would be spoken.  This seems like a much better approach for the modern world (in as much as humans should have to care about phone numbers at all).

Tim Hall

  • Victoria is my queen
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2893 on: 15 November, 2018, 01:28:23 pm »
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)
But we're already in that debate. The correct punctuation in German is in pairs. Except for the first three digits, it seems.
I doubt it... *googles*

Yep, variable length area codes, subscriber numbers that can go down to 2 digits, so their dialplan is even more of a mess than ours:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Germany


Of course in the real world cellular users and most people under the age of about 40 only ever dial the fully-qualified number, and the old people who still dial subscriber numbers manually will recognise their own area code.  So it's only really telecoms engineers who have to care about dialplans who actually *need* to get the punctuation right.
That and pub quizzers.

I was at a school fund raising quiz night some years ago, post April 2000.  The question was "what is the dialing code for inner London".
This caused a <twitch> from me.
The answer was given as 0207, eliciting a further <twitch>.

I went up to discuss it with the question setter, as did another bloke.  The question setter was having none of it, but when the other bloke called him a wanker I made my excuses and left.
I don't think we won either.
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can
"overhaul" it, or you can ride it.  (Jerome K Jerome)

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2894 on: 15 November, 2018, 01:39:59 pm »
What do you doubt, Kim?

I doubt that the German phone system parses numbers as multiple pairs. 
German language parses phone numbers as multiple pairs.

Quote
Reading out pairs of digits as discrete numbers is nothing to do with the phone system, it's just a cultural (in)convenience.
This is the point.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2895 on: 15 November, 2018, 01:42:04 pm »
Yes, and I specifically wanted to avoid talking about semantic punctuation, until you suggested we already were.

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2896 on: 15 November, 2018, 01:45:36 pm »
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)
But we're already in that debate. The correct punctuation in German is in pairs. Except for the first three digits, it seems.
I doubt it... *googles*

Yep, variable length area codes, subscriber numbers that can go down to 2 digits, so their dialplan is even more of a mess than ours:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Germany


Of course in the real world cellular users and most people under the age of about 40 only ever dial the fully-qualified number, and the old people who still dial subscriber numbers manually will recognise their own area code.  So it's only really telecoms engineers who have to care about dialplans who actually *need* to get the punctuation right.
That and pub quizzers.

I was at a school fund raising quiz night some years ago, post April 2000.  The question was "what is the dialing code for inner London".
This caused a <twitch> from me.
The answer was given as 0207, eliciting a further <twitch>.

I went up to discuss it with the question setter, as did another bloke.  The question setter was having none of it, but when the other bloke called him a wanker I made my excuses and left.
I don't think we won either.

I think the problem is with the "code" part of the question - if it were "prefix" then there is some justification, 020 being the dialing code but 7xxx xxxx relating to the old geographic inner london.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2897 on: 15 November, 2018, 03:22:06 pm »
Yes, and I specifically wanted to avoid talking about semantic punctuation, until you suggested we already were.
Well not quite. You said "At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate." To which I responded that we already were, because what were we talking about other than how German phone numbers are spoken in pairs? You've now introduced "semantic punctuation" which is interesting because it suggests you had a completely different sense of punctuation in mind. To me, "semantic" is to do with meanings of words. The only words here are numbers, and they don't have any meaning in this context. But I see Google defines it as "relating to meaning in language or logic." So if you were thinking of the "logic" of a phone system, clearly numbers have meanings and their "punctuation" by the logic of the phone system alters their meaning. But that's got so little to do with phone numbers as we read them that it hadn't occurred to me.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2898 on: 15 November, 2018, 07:08:34 pm »
A telephone number isn't really a number though, it's an address.  This was probably more intuitive in the days of exchange names rather than STD codes, but we all know that they don't really count telephones, any more than house numbers count houses.  Standard ways of formatting addresses are useful.

I'm reminded of barakta's prehistoric Mac, which is so old that you have to enter its IPv4 address as a single decimal (or hexadecimal) number, rather than the dotted-quad representation we've become used to.  Semantically, it's actually the binary representation that's important (for computers to make "this network"/"other network" distinctions, much like a telephone exchange has to), but humans are even worse at long binary numbers than they are at long decimals.

I suppose dotted-quad IPv4 addresses are a bit like the French approach of using 5 two-digit numbers for telephones - a standard format that makes the address clearer to humans for accurate transcription, but is only loosely related to the underlying system.

(CIDR/E164 analogy left as an exercise for the reader)

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2899 on: 15 November, 2018, 07:21:42 pm »
A telephone number isn't really a number though, it's an address.  This was probably more intuitive in the days of exchange names rather than STD codes, but we all know that they don't really count telephones, any more than house numbers count houses.  Standard ways of formatting addresses are useful.

I'm reminded of barakta's prehistoric Mac, which is so old that you have to enter its IPv4 address as a single decimal (or hexadecimal) number, rather than the dotted-quad representation we've become used to.  Semantically, it's actually the binary representation that's important (for computers to make "this network"/"other network" distinctions, much like a telephone exchange has to), but humans are even worse at long binary numbers than they are at long decimals.

I suppose dotted-quad IPv4 addresses are a bit like the French approach of using 5 two-digit numbers for telephones - a standard format that makes the address clearer to humans for accurate transcription, but is only loosely related to the underlying system.

(CIDR/E164 analogy left as an exercise for the reader)

I was with you up to the end of your first paragraph.....