On Tuesday 12 June 2007 15:36, Adam Borowski wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 02:36:55PM +0200, Magnus Holmgren wrote:
> > On Tuesday 12 June 2007 14:09, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > > English linguistic is a descriptive science -- what is correct and what
> > > is not depends on what people use. This stays in stark contrast to
> > > prescriptive languages like French where a government agency is
> > > entitled to ban the use of an established word and enforce using a
> > > made-up replacement.
> >
> > You're arguing that since few people use an otherwise superior concept,
> > Debian should not use it either -- a fallacy known as argumentum ad
> > populum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum).
>
> Except, I did not claim that one of the versions is superior. What I
> stated was: 1. English is a language where the correct usage is what most
> people use, 2. "kilobyte" is preferred over "kibibyte" by a vast majority
> of those whose communicate using means accessible to Google search
But "kilobyte" and "kibibyte" are different words, not alternate spellings of
the same word. Their meanings overlap, but are not identical.
Therefore "kibibyte" is not incorrect just because more people use the less
precise/more ambiguous "kilobyte".
> Thus, referring to popularity is not fallacious here; my argument was that
> in the case of English, it's popularity not prescriptions which determines
> which version is correct.
3. You also stated that Debian should not use IEC prefixes, calling it, or
perhaps rather even discussing it, "madness". Should I have concluded that it
is solely other reasons, and not popularity, that is ground for your
aversion?
--
Magnus Holmgren holmgren@lysator.liu.se
(No Cc of list mail needed, thanks)
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