this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
284 points (98.0% liked)

Linux

8847 readers
33 users here now

Welcome to c/linux!

Welcome to our thriving Linux community! Whether you're a seasoned Linux enthusiast or just starting your journey, we're excited to have you here. Explore, learn, and collaborate with like-minded individuals who share a passion for open-source software and the endless possibilities it offers. Together, let's dive into the world of Linux and embrace the power of freedom, customization, and innovation. Enjoy your stay and feel free to join the vibrant discussions that await you!

Rules:

  1. Stay on topic: Posts and discussions should be related to Linux, open source software, and related technologies.

  2. Be respectful: Treat fellow community members with respect and courtesy.

  3. Quality over quantity: Share informative and thought-provoking content.

  4. No spam or self-promotion: Avoid excessive self-promotion or spamming.

  5. No NSFW adult content

  6. Follow general lemmy guidelines.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I mean fair enough, but it made me laugh.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Gork@lemm.ee 97 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ English (Traditional)

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ English (Simplified)

[–] mortimer@lemmy.world 21 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ English

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡² Pidgin English

[–] hallettj@leminal.space 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

A pidgin language is a simplified language that appears when people need to communicate with each other, but they don't have a common language. But if the situation lasts long enough for children to grow up learning the mixture of languages as their native language then it quickly evolves into a creole. The difference is that a creole is not a simplified language, and it has regular grammar. While growing up children always "reanalyze" their language to regularize grammar and fill in gaps in expressiveness. This is a main driver in shifts in all languages. The effect is especially profound when starting from an irregular, simplified language.

Because of reanalysis pidgins tend to either be temporary, or to give way to creoles. I don't know of a pidgin that exists in the US right now. There are creoles - there are some details here

[–] mortimer@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

Okay. Duly noted and amended...

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ English

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡² Fuckwit

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 days ago

I dunno if I would say πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ is traditional. At the time of the American Revolution, the British accent was pretty close to what's considered an American accent today.

Check out this video around 13:40 https://youtu.be/KYaqdJ35fPg

[–] dojan@lemmy.world 75 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

Throwback to Microsoft renaming "zip file" to "postcode file" in English.

The difference here obviously being that actual humans worked on the localisation Mint uses, whereas I'm sure Microsoft just uses machine translation.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yeah, this feels like a courtesy thing. I just didn't expect it.

(And only just now noticed after switching three weeks ago since this was the first time I had to delete anything in all that time.)

That's funny, I hadn't heard that before. Situations like this is why actual humans will always make better translators (overall).

Native readers can almost always tell when something was just run through a translation tool, because translation is about meaning, not just word/phrase replacement. Even LLMs will make weird contextual mistakes because there's no fundamental understanding of meaning.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 10 points 6 days ago

Ah yes, the old "packed octet sequence, total compression of data encoding" format. It was invented by the boffins at Bletchley between cracking Enigma, and don't let Phil Katz tell you any different. ~waggles finger~

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I've never associated .zip files with mailing addresses, a lot of the time they have a zipper pull tab as if you're zipping up tight clothing around them to make them smaller. Nothing to do with the Zone Improvement Plan.

Amusing fact: There was a tool similar to winzip or winRAR for the classic mac called "Stuffit" which I think is the most superior name.

[–] dojan@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don't think they are, it was just Microsoft screwing things up. I've never heard someone call them postcode archives.

yeah it's an exapmlenof the Scunthorpe problem.

[–] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 36 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Some British words are better and some American words are better. It just depends.

I'm from the UK and I think "Trash" and "Garbage" are much more aggressive sounding than "Rubbish". And I like that.

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 5 points 6 days ago

I prefer "landfill"

[–] RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Does British English distinguish between different kinds of "rubbish" like American English? We generally refer to organic waste as "garbage" and inorganic waste as "trash."

[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 4 points 6 days ago

Not really, no. We might add a word or two to clarify the kind of waste but not a different word entirely.

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 4 points 6 days ago

We generally refer to organic waste as "garbage" and inorganic waste as "trash."

Who is this 'we'? Is this regional, maybe? In the regard you mentioned, I use them 100% interchangeably. I'm trying to think of any case where I don't use them interchangeably, and I can't come up with anything. I grew up in the Great Lakes area.

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 30 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Several years back, I set my phone's language to UK English so the voice assistant would be British, and my flashlight button changed to "Torch".

[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 16 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Unfortunately mine says flashlight which is a mild annoyance since it doesn't flash.

[–] blandfordforever@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

You're not pushing the button fast enough.

*after seeing some other comments, I want to clarify that I was being sarcastic.

So you're saying it's light on flash

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Which is objectively a better word. Ah Americans - twice the syllables, twice the letters, and it doesn't even flash!

Reminiscent of "elevator", except that has four times the syllables! "Transportation" (transport), "burglarize" (burgle), "garbage collector" (dustman), "apartment" (flat)... I'm detecting a pattern.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

It's nice that in Star Trek they went with British English for their turbolifts.

Can you imagine having to say turboelevator in a hurry? shudders

[–] Sorse@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Which is objectively a better word. Ah Americans - twice the syllables, twice the letters, and it doesn't even flash!

Except torch is a fancy stick with one end on fire. Flashlight is a light giving an intense flash, used for photographing at night or indoors.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] hallettj@leminal.space 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They can flash by pressing the button. On some flashlights partially pressing and releasing the button flashes the light off and on. That's a notable difference from, say, lanterns where you need a cover or shield for signalling.

The problem with "torch" is that there's already a thing called "torch", and now I don't know which thing you mean. The word "flashlight" has avoided critical ambiguity in many of our Indiana Jones movies.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

They can flash by pressing the button

Oh come on, this is obvious post-hoc justification!

The problem with β€œtorch” is that there’s already a thing called β€œtorch”,

Indeed, it's a thing that you hold in your hand to provide light, as it has been for thousands of years.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago

Now this is the kind of innovation we need

[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 20 points 6 days ago (4 children)

It's "Wastebasket" in the UK on the GNOME desktop. I'm happy enough with that.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

OS/2 Warp called it the shredder.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] ordellrb@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Just don't put the stuff to delete in /bin or /usr/bin

[–] Maiq@lemy.lol 3 points 5 days ago

Right, it goes in ~/.local/bin for safe keeping.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 13 points 6 days ago

Never really thought about it, but yeah, it's always been "Rubbish Bin" for me.

The directories created on filesystems for temporary storage are still called .Trash-* though.

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Did you move to the UK Squid?

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I did. Left the U.S. with my daughter on January 20th, arrived here on January 21st.

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I'm so happy for you! Well done getting the hell out of there.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Thank you. Now I need a job.

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Best of luck. I'm just glad you got out! Was it hard to do?

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

No, I have dual US/UK citizenship (until Trump decides to revoke my US citizenship, which wouldn't shock me). But I need to find a job paying at least Β£29,000 a year so my daughter can stay on a family visa. She's currently only here on a 6 month visitor visa. My wife is also still in the US and won't be coming over until I secure it.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Can confirm. It always seems overly verbose, though. Why not just bin? Or Rubbish? Nobody IRL would ever say "rubbish bin".

[–] pelya@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I guess because 'bin' is a shorthand of 'binary', that is, the directory where all your executable files reside, so the developers felt a need to clarify that /usr/bin isn't to be cleaned.

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I thought the 'bin' folder in program folders was where they put trash for longer than I'd like to admit. >_<

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 5 points 6 days ago

Well, that's better than moving all your binaries to the rubbish bin

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Is your garbage little endian or big endian?

[–] pelya@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

It's a Python source with an executable flag set.

I guess plaintext garbage is big-endian.

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oy! Mum's the word, old chap, don't go blabbing to the Yanks, or they'll be removing it faster than a Londoner can say "cheerio"!

Sorry

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

So you're saying they should hit the rubout button?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] shifty@leminal.space 5 points 6 days ago

Ya put it in the bin

load more comments
view more: next β€Ί