23 Oct, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 21st comment:
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In France, when you make a spelling mistake, you lose 5% to 10% per mistake, depending on how serious the mistake is. When you make a grammar mistake, you lose 10% to 20%. They also cheerfully assign negative scores. It gives you a very, very strong incentive to learn to spell correctly rather quickly. (And FWIW, French is a much harder language to spell than English…) Occasionally I think that things are too lax if spelling mistakes don't matter.

Even as a computer science TA I would point out spelling mistakes or bad grammar (especially in paragraph-form proofs or arguments), although I was given an executive order to not take off points for them. :wink:
23 Oct, 2008, Conner wrote in the 22nd comment:
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Sheesh, Andrik, what have I done to your poor thread? :lol:
23 Oct, 2008, Andrik wrote in the 23rd comment:
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From soliciting builders to complete threadjack in 4.6 seconds!
23 Oct, 2008, Conner wrote in the 24th comment:
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Hmm, is that a new book title in the making? :wink:
23 Oct, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 25th comment:
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Oh, so this is where the thread went… might have been nice to post a note in the other one :wink:
23 Oct, 2008, Conner wrote in the 26th comment:
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Well, the moderator who split the thread did include a link back to the original one within my first post which was one of the few that was on-topic for the original thread. :shrug: Go figure.
23 Oct, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 27th comment:
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… and now there are posts from the same discussion split across two threads :tongue:
23 Oct, 2008, quixadhal wrote in the 28th comment:
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All your threads are belong to us!
24 Oct, 2008, The_Fury wrote in the 29th comment:
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DavidHaley said:
In France, when you make a spelling mistake, you lose 5% to 10% per mistake, depending on how serious the mistake is. When you make a grammar mistake, you lose 10% to 20%. They also cheerfully assign negative scores. It gives you a very, very strong incentive to learn to spell correctly rather quickly. (And FWIW, French is a much harder language to spell than English…) Occasionally I think that things are too lax if spelling mistakes don't matter.

Even as a computer science TA I would point out spelling mistakes or bad grammar (especially in paragraph-form proofs or arguments), although I was given an executive order to not take off points for them. :wink:


Interesting that you bring up French here David, The French among other languages are very concerned with keeping the language pure. Where some will just incorporate new English words directly into the language i believe that the French have started to take it upon themselves to create new French words for the English counterparts to halt the dilution of the language into another English dialect.
24 Oct, 2008, Igabod wrote in the 30th comment:
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interesting side note about french language, in france they abbreviate the word cassette (like cassette tapes… oh how retro) as K7 (the letter k is pronounced ka in french and 7 is pronounced set) isn't that so weird?
24 Oct, 2008, Kjwah wrote in the 31st comment:
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I hate text messaging with a passion. I now hate this forum.

:p
24 Oct, 2008, Sandi wrote in the 32nd comment:
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Y so much h8?

:evil:
24 Oct, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 33rd comment:
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The French, as with many other countries actually, have what is essentially a government body – l'Academie Francaise (I don't feel like turning on accents) – for laying out what the rules of the language are. They also make determinations about what is an actual word and what is slang. Sometimes they do things that are kind of silly, but sometimes they do things that are actually pretty elegant. I quite prefer their word "courriel" over just using the English "email" – it is a perfect translation in all respects.

Quote
interesting side note about french language, in france they abbreviate the word cassette (like cassette tapes… oh how retro) as K7 (the letter k is pronounced ka in french and 7 is pronounced set) isn't that so weird?

It took me the longest time to figure out that stores with "K7" in the front were selling/renting out video tapes. I guess it never occurred to me to read it phonetically. But that happens in English too, although K7 seems to be a more accepted form of slang than e.g. h8, f8, any1, …
24 Oct, 2008, Noplex wrote in the 34th comment:
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Conner said:
DavidHaley said:
Arguably, you shouldn't be sending text messages to a stranger or anybody in a professional atmosphere in the first place. I wouldn't expect to see text messages in anything other than friendly/casual conversation. (We are talking about SMS phone text messages right?)

we are, but having worked in a call center for multiple cell carriers in the past, you'd be surprised what I've seen sent by SMS. Sadly, I've seen the same "text message speak" slipping gradually, but steadily, into forums, emails, blogs, and even the occassional bit of snail mail too lately. :sad:

If you had been working for Verizon around the time I was programming for Windows Mobile you might have seen full length character messages being used to send data between phones. At the time (and I believe it still is) it was cheaper than paying for the data plan. Because one set of phones we were using could not have the broadband radio and the cellular radio on concurrently the only way to ensure information was sent was this method. It was also rather nice that when a connection is made to the base station for a phone call all SMS messages seem to get pushed through.

Those were fun times. I'm waiting to purchase a Nokia tablet device to start playing with android.
24 Oct, 2008, quixadhal wrote in the 35th comment:
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DavidHaley said:
I quite prefer their word "courriel" over just using the English "email" – it is a perfect translation in all respects.


I don't know French, and my English blood will probably give me heartburn for acknowledging the French have a "language", but my mild interest in language origins compels me to ask….

Courier is "one who carries a message" (really it's probably "one who does a message", since -ier would probably be "one who does…"), and so Cour- must be the root for message? If so, how would "-riel" translate?

Oh, and if we've officially accepted "email" as a real word… does that mean the plethora of iWords is bound to show up in the iDictionary, iSoon? Sometimes I just want to iKill Apple…
24 Oct, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 36th comment:
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In French, "courrier" typically means a message, not the person who actually carries/delivers it. I believe it actually comes from the verb "courir" which means "to run". And then we got the substantive "courrier", the person who runs, which finally the word lost the meaning of the messenger and became just the message. You would say "j'ai envoye par courrier", meaning "I sent it by mail", or just "j'ai envoye un courrier", meaning "I sent a letter".

"Courriel" is a combination of "courrier" and "electronique" in basically the same way that "email" is a combination of "electronic" and "mail". A "courrier electronique" would literally mean an "electronic letter". So it's actually a very clever translation of "email", both in its meaning, and in respecting the construction of the term from other terms.
25 Oct, 2008, Igabod wrote in the 37th comment:
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do any languages other than french and english do the number/letter words? (K7, h8, l8r etc.)
25 Oct, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 38th comment:
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I can't think of any off-hand but I would be very much astounded if English and French were the only ones… :smile:
25 Oct, 2008, elanthis wrote in the 39th comment:
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Igabod said:
interesting side note about french language, in france they abbreviate the word cassette (like cassette tapes… oh how retro) as K7 (the letter k is pronounced ka in french and 7 is pronounced set) isn't that so weird?


The canine police units here all have "K-9 Unit" on the side of the cars. It always irritates the hell out of me. :)
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