Re: Change templates: CD -> installation medium - final patch

[Justin B Rye <justin.byam.rye@gmail.com>]

John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrot:
> On 9/22/19 8:52 PM, Justin B Rye wrote:
>>> The origin of the word is Latin. The word is grammatically
>>> neutrum, for which the singular is "-um", the plural is "-a". It's
>>> not a mess at all.
>> 
>> Etymology does not determine current grammatical behaviour.
> 
> Official dictionaries do, again, look it up:

This is a widespread misunderstanding.  Dictionaries do not determine
how languages work - they attempt to document it, and if there's
divergence between what they say and what the community of native
speakers says, that's a problem with the dictionary.  If you don't
believe me, ask the people who write the dictionaries!  For instance,
a couple of links away from the page you're pointing at:

 https://languages.oup.com/our-story/creating-dictionaries

>> https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/media
> 
> the mediatreated as singular or plural The main means of mass
> communication (broadcasting, publishing, and the Internet) regarded
> collectively.
> ‘their demands were publicized by the media’

Why are you still obsessing over this completely irrelevant usage?
Nobody is suggesting that debian-installer should talk about the news
media.  (Though it would be nice if you could take in the fact that
the Usage article on that page goes further than I did in explicitly
recognising "the media is" as standard English.)
 
> 2
> plural form of medium
> 
> Then click on "medium" and you get the definition of what we are talking about,
> a storage medium and plural, storage media.

Yup: a *category* of propagation medium - they go on to specify

 3 A particular form of storage material for computer files, such as
   magnetic tape or discs.

"Discs", plural, are *a medium*; that's the *category* sense - "a
particular form".

>>> It's "the media", because that's a plural word, like "the news".
>> 
>> That's not the sense of "media" that's relevant.
> 
> That's the only case where media is a plural-word.

Wait, so now you're *insisting* that there's only one sense of the
word "media" that's plural?

> Again, look it up: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/media

Yup, lots of different senses,  How can you say there's only one case
where it's plural *while actively pointing at* a list of different
senses for which "media" is the plural, *none* of which is the
relevant sense "individual chunks of some data storage substrate"?
 
>>> Both languages have imported the word from Latin. I cited renowned dictionaries,
>>> you are basically citing your own and are being condescending because
>>> you are a native speaker and I'm not.
>> 
>> Well, as it happens I also have a Masters degree in linguistics, so I
>> probably use unhelpful technical terms without noticing, but more
>> importantly I know the limitations of dictionaries.  The first step is
>> to get straight what it is that you're trying to look up.  Looking up
>> "medium" in the category sense is no more useful than looking up the
>> word that means "spiritualist".  And unfortunately, itemisable chunks
>> of data-storage media are a new thing that people have only started
>> talking about in the past few decades (even now, people rarely need to
>> talk in terms of the generic cover-term "media"), and it's a new idea
>> that doesn't add a new headword for the dictionaries to define - it's
>> a new usage of the *plural* word "media", so it tends to fall between
>> the cracks.
> 
> If you have a master's degree in linguistics, you should be able to provide
> sources as every scientist does.

The dictionary that you've brought as evidence will do very nicely as
a source, thanks.  Again:

 3 A particular form of storage material for computer files, such as
   magnetic tape or discs.

That's the definition of medium as in "all my DVD backups used the
same medium".  Where is the definition of medium that could be used
for "all my DVD backups are on different individual DVDs"?  There
isn't one.  And why's that?  Simple: because that isn't an idiomatic
sense of the English word.

> If I'm trying to convince someone in
> a physics argument, I also just don't say "I have a Diploma in Physics,
> so you are wrong", but I'm actually providing sources.

When people pick arguments with physicists, it usually turns out to be
because they've misunderstood what the sources are saying - they're
assuming a Newtonian absolute frame of reference, or assuming they
know what "entropy" means, or something.  I try not to argue physics
with physicists, because I strongly suspect I don't understand what
"entropy" means.
 
>>> Please cite a dictionary where "media" is used as a singular word
>>> not being in the context of "news".
>> 
>> Again, your problem is that that isn't the right question.  The only
>> sense of "media" that's commonly treated as singular is the
>> *colloquial* usage of "the news media", and that's the wrong one.  The
>> sense that's relevant here is "storage media", which *has* no simple
>> singular form better than "item of media".
> 
> Of course, it does. It's "one storage medium" and "many storage media",
> "one recording medium", "many recording media".

That's the mistake you insist on clinging to, but I'm still hoping
that if only you can focus your attention on that precious dictionary
of yours you'll see that according to its definition, "discs" are one
medium, not multiple individual media.
 
>> It isn't even a proper mass noun - words like "spaghetti" are
>> singulars without (itemising) plurals, while "media" is a plural with
>> no itemising singular.  The bad news is, words like this usually end
>> up reinterpreting their plural form as a singular (cf. "data"), so as
>> far as conformance with Latin grammatical rules is concerned things
>> are only likely to get worse.
> 
> I don't really understand your argument. If your claim that the singular
> for the word "medium" is not well defined, why is the Oxford dictionary
> doing it?

Words can have multiple senses which have different grammatical
behaviour.  This is unusually obvious in the case of "medium", since
there's also a sense meaning "spiritualist" which only ever pluralises
as "mediums"!

> If you have a refutable source that underlines your point, I'm more
> than interested to read it. But so far you have provided zero sources
> and your only argument is your degree.

I didn't mention my degree to boast about it; I mentioned it because
you *demanded* that I reveal my credentials (and because it gave me an
opportunity to apologise for using jargon).  And I don't need to hunt
for sources, because the ones you point at are all arguing on my side;
the problem is just that you read them assuming you already know what
they're going to say.
-- 
JBR	with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
	sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package