This one time, at band camp, Daniel B. said: > Chris Waters wrote: > > I am dependent on coffee, therefore coffee is a dependency of mine. > > Not that I can swear that I've never heard the usage you claim, but do > you have a definition from a (professional) dictionary that documents > that usage? > > (That one can't say, "Guam is dependent on the U.S., therefore the U.S. > is a dependency of Guam's" (or "of Guam").) 'Dependency' has a special (geopolitical) meaning in this case, making the sentence sound funny, but "The U.S. has a dependency named Guam" makes perfect sense. The problem seems to lie in the parsing of the prepositions, rather than the word dependency itself. Dependency OF vs. Dependency ON, if you see what I mean. Chris (and I) have a dependency ON caffeine. Guam is a dependency OF the U.S. - the prepositional choice changes the relational precedence. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- | ,''`. Stephen Gran | | : :' : sgran@debian.org | | `. `' Debian user, admin, and developer | | `- http://www.debian.org | -----------------------------------------------------------------
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature