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Conference thebay::joyoflex

Title:	The Joy of Lex
Notice:	A Notes File even your grammar could love
Moderator:	THEBAY::SYSTEM

Created:	Fri Feb 28 1986
Last Modified:	Mon Jun 02 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1192
Total number of notes:	42769

928.0. "Different strokes ..." by CUPMK::SLOANE (Communication is the key) Fri Nov 15 1991 13:15

  Many people have difficulty learning or remembering the names of all
  the  keys. How many people know that the ~ is called the tilde, for
  example? And how many of the bracket keys [, {, ], and } do you know
  by name?

  Do you always call the * the asterisk, and the . the period? When
  you are deleting lots of files and enter *.*  do you say "star dot
  star" or "asterisk period asterisk"?

  And then there's that old friend of mine, the @  -- sometimes know
  as the snail key.

  Of course, as we go international it gets even more interesting. We
  call / the slash. In England it's known as the stroke. I suppose
  the Brits call the \ key the backstroke?

  Bruce

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
928.1		TROU20::YUEN	OXYdized MORON	`Fri Nov 15 1991 13:52`	10
	The British also don't say "period"; they say "full stop". Assuming an * is still called an asterisk, then . is "asterisk full-stop asterisk". What a mouthful! I guess even "dot" is acceptable in that case. I say "Star dot star" just because it's easier to say. Of course, the one-time I told my ten-year-old niece to look for a file on the computer by the name of BIRTH., she typed BIRTHSTAR.STAR and she couldn't find the file. 8-) Duncan.
928.2		PENUTS::NOBLE	Those guys! They're so 90s!	`Mon Nov 18 1991 09:53`	11
	Yeah, those long-winded British! It's a wonder they ever get ANYTHING said! Actually, I don't know if you noticed, but "full stop" has one less syllable than "period", so they gain some time there. Also, "asterisk" is by no means a uniquely British affectation, even if it is the "correct" name for that character. Most British people I know (including myself) say "star dot star" just like you do. But I don't think we learnt it from Americans. ...Robert
928.3	When in Gaul...	AZUR::HALDANE	Typos to the Trade	`Mon Nov 18 1991 10:32`	6
	Mispronunciation rathole: Is it only among Brits that you hear "asterix", or do Americans and other English speakers do it too? Delia
928.4		MCIS5::WOOLNER	Photographer is fuzzy, underdeveloped and dense	`Mon Nov 18 1991 10:50`	3
	Some Americans say "asterix" and worse (I've heard "axterix")... Leslie
928.5	ass-to-RISC	NOTIME::SACKS	Gerald Sacks ZKO2-3/N30 DTN:381-2085	`Mon Nov 18 1991 15:32`	8
	****************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** ****************************************************************************** Oops, I just sat on my DECstation's keyboard.
928.6		JIT081::DIAMOND	Order temporarily out of personal name	`Mon Nov 18 1991 19:51`	5
	Isn't it considered traitorous to use * in Britain? After all, in the U.S.A., it is the Nathan Hale operator. He had only one ass to risk for his country.
928.7		PASTIS::MONAHAN	humanity is a trojan horse	`Tue Nov 19 1991 01:30`	17
	There is an old story from the Basingstoke TSC about the customer that phoned up and said "When I push British Rail all I get is a snowflake". This was (quite reasonably) completely incomprehensible to the support staff. After all, British Rail frequently needs a bit of a push, particularly when there is snow about. It turned out to be a faulty keyboard that was registering "*" when the "%" key was pushed. "%" bears some resemblance to the British Rail logo. There was a long discussion on Internet a year or two ago, with violent arguments about such things as whether "#" should be called "splat" or "hash". Anyone remember the Victor Borge piece on how English would be more intelligible if we pronounced the punctuation?
928.8	Also see topic 22	KURTAN::WESTERBACK	Rock'n'roll will never die	`Tue Nov 19 1991 05:46`	1