Mike Meredith

Why English Is A Pidgin Language

Mar 102018

Alfred is a former Anglo-Saxon (actually Saxon) land-owner who has been reduced to serfdom for swearing to support William the Bastard and then breaking his oath in rebellion. Understandably he’s a bit put out by this.

William (no, not the Bastard; another one) is a Norman lord who has taken over Alfred’s estates. He is a bit of a thicko, and his main strength is bashing people with big lumps of optionally sharpened metal; his language skills aren’t especially pronounced which is somewhat ironic as a Norman is really a Viking with a French accent.

Bruce is William’s sword brother and is currently present so William can utter asides to him during the following dialog; he is presently visiting William as a break from his somewhat grimmer estates in Northumbria near the Scottish border, and to drink as much as is humanly possible.

William: “Oy! Alfred. Bring bœuf”

Alfred looks puzzled; he’s heard the word bœuf before but isn’t sure what it means, and isn’t in the mood to be helpful (he rarely is).

William (in Norman French which I have rendered in English because my Norman French is non-existent, and I’m not sure Google Translate is up to this job. It is also in italics to clarify that William is making an aside to Bruce): “These Saxons are a bit thick; can’t even understand the simplest commands.”

William: “Bring ox(masculine ending)”

Alfred: “We don’t have ox(masculine ending), how about ox(feminine ending)?”

William: “Just bring it”

Alfred leaves the hall looking puzzled, and is gone for an unusually long time.

Bruce: Is he trying to breed with the cow so he can bring a bull?

Alfred arrives back leading a cow on a rope; it is obviously still alive. William stands and starts to draw his sword whereas Bruce hurls his nearly empty tankard at Alfred which fortunately bonks his head. This seems to satisfy William who slumps back down in his chair and mutters: See what I have to put up with?

Alfred: “Did you mean ox(ending indicating a roasted dish)?”

William: “Bring food”

Alfred hands the cow’s rope to another serf, heads out of the hall, and comes back a few minutes later with some roast ox.

The Bench

Zsh: The Start Of An ‘Intelligent’ Pager

Computing, Linux No Responses »

Mar 092018

One of the things that annoys me about pagers such as less, more, most, etc. is that they are dumb in the sense that they cannot detect the format of the text file they are displaying. For example, all of a sudden I find myself reading lots of markdown-formatted files, and I find myself using most to display it – never remembering that it is mdv I want.

As it happens, when I invoke a pager at the shell prompt, I typically use an alias (page or pg) to invoke a preferred pager, and by extending this functionality into a function I can start to approach what I want :-

function extension {
  printf "%s\n" ${${argv/*\./}:l}
}

function page {
 if [[ -z $argv ]]
 then
   $PAGER
 else
   case $(extension $argv) in
     "md")
       mdv -A $argv | $PAGER
       ;;
     "man")
       groff -m mandoc -Tutf8 $argv | $PAGER
       ;;
     *)
       $PAGER $argv
       ;;
     esac
   fi
}

(the function “extension” has had a quick bug fix applied to smash the filename extension to lowercase)

Of course there are undoubtedly umpteen errors in that, and probably better ways to do it too. And it won’t work properly on its own ($PAGER hasn’t been set).

But it’s the start of something I can use to display all sorts of text files in a terminal window without having to remember all those commands. But as for ‘intelligent’, nope it’s not that – just a bit smarter than the average pager.

Storm Emma Victims: Should We Be Uncritical In Our Sympathy?

General No Responses »

Mar 082018

There are tons of stories about poor unfortunates being caught out by the weather last week – in both Storm Emma, and it’s predecessor – and whilst they no doubt had a terrible time being stuck on roads or trains, should we be uncritically sympathetic?

As an extreme example, Friday brought stories about the poor motorists stuck on the M80 overnight. Yet to get stuck, they would have to travel during a red weather warning. And these warnings were not exactly difficult to find.

And the reason for travelling?

Making deliveries. Very few deliveries are so urgent they cannot wait 24 hours.
Trying to get to the airport to catch a flight for a netball competition. Sorry, but a netball competition isn’t more important than your life.
Travelling home from work? Get a hotel room.
Travelling to catch a show? Really??

It would be interesting to see the media start questioning people in such circumstances a bit more. Just ask them why did they travel, and whether it was important enough to ignore the warnings.

Grazing In The Misty Morning

Everyday Annoyances: Being Cut Off At Pedestrian Crossings

General No Responses »

Mar 082018

It sounds silly doesn’t it? Two people are crossing a pedestrian crossing; one walks straight across and the other walks a bit faster in a diagonal because they are turning left (or right) after they’re over the crossing. And the later crosses the path of the former, interrupting their crossing.

Dangerous? That’s going a bit too far.

Annoying as hell? Sure is.

The Window

How Did “A Bit Of A Cold Snap” Become The “Beast From The East” ?

General No Responses »

Feb 272018

In days past the current spell of somewhat chilly weather would be called a “cold snap” rather than the intentionally scary “beast from the east”. When did we start having to make the weather scary?

Now don’t get me wrong – the cold weather is not entirely pleasant, but there is not much we can do about it other than turn the heating on, work from home if we have that option, and take care when out and about.

But what purpose is served by making the weather scary? What is the purpose behind getting a bit wimpy about the weather?

It’s nasty out there. Get over it already.

Pentland Hills

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