There’s another. Surely “encoding” is a verb, so “a character encoding” is surely wrong… it should be “a character coding”, should it not?
The former is in general use so accepted, but based on the words themselves, I would suggest gramattically wrong, or at the very least unnecessary. Ah well, evolving language and so on.
Is it a verb or not? Therein lies a question. Many people would say so, many others would say not. It is common usage in certain areas to action something, it is also common to have actioned something, and that is the use I naturally went to use when I queried this. It is a regular form, afterall, so one could assume it is correct, as long as one assumes that action is in itself a verb. Dictionaries I have checked only list it as a noun. However actioner is a valid word (although not in the obvious meaning of one who actions, it is in fact a noun with a film related meaning). More importantly though, actionable is a valid listed adjective, meaning giving cause for legal action, ie effectively able to be actioned. A specific definition, true, however it seems that this meaning requires allowance for action to be a verb for the adjective form to make sense.
Therefore, English being a fluid language, I hereby declare action to be a verb, unless I receive any valid arguments to the contrary, that is.
Add to this that the meaning is clear, saying in saying “I will action” the use is clearly the verb “to action” rather than the noun, from then on use it as a regular verb so allowing the forms actioned, actioning and so on. Perfect!
“E Pluribus Unum”, “From many, one”, the original motto of the united states pre-1956 when it was replaced with “In God we Trust”.
I feel it necessary to mention a second latin motto on the Great Seal is “Novus Ordo Seclorum”, oft mistranslated to “New World Order”, more accurately “New Order of the Ages”. Strictly it also does not translate as “New secular order” either (secular does mean “relating to the current world”, however, so if you argue hard enough…).
A recent discussion I have been involved with has centered around the searchable lists of sex offenders publicly available in many US states. In some regions these lists only show rough locations of offenders giving people some statistical idea of concentrations, while in other areas lists provide details of the offenders including their names, addresses and photographs. The reasoning behind these lists is that local people can search for offenders in their area and protect their children as a result. They also want to be able to avoid living in certain areas that have a “high concentration” of offenders.
I really do not see the benefits of the lists. People who are slightly paranoid could look through fairly frequently and memorise the photos of offenders, so that if they see them in the street they can avoid them… that’s fine, but unless the person is actually commiting a crime they can’t report them anyway, so short of simply avoiding there seems little benefit in that. If a crime is being committed, or the person is acting suspiciously (hanging around in a car outside a school every day, say) then the lists are not necessary, they should be reported for such behaviour as a matter of course and let the police deal with it. Will parents simply not let their children play in the area surrounding the home of a convicted paedophile? That is fine, but parents shouldn’t be letting their children play where they can’t keep an eye on them anyway, so doesn’t really make a great deal of difference, all paedophiles have to be first timers at some point anyway, so there’s always a point at which they are not on the list. Then I wonder what the statistics are for how close to their own home paedophiles “operate” (for want of a better word), would they not watch children in different areas so that people don’t recognise them anyway?
The most obvious disadvantage of the lists is the assistance they give to vigilantism, people can simply look up sex offenders and track them down. I’m aware that the lists have disclaimers to the effect of “do not use these for illegal purposes”, but then, so does the iPod I bought and I wonder how many people take notice of that. Apart from that they are severe invasions of privacy. In some cases I admit the offences are severe enough, and/or repetitive enough that the offender is effectively giving up any right to privacy, but there is no clear distinction. If we take that to the extreme should a 17 year old who has concentual sex with his 15 year old girlfriend be publicly listed for the rest of his life? Where do we draw the line, that is to say what crime constitutes a loss of the right to privacy.
The data is available, if someone wants to check out a particular person the data about that person can be obtained, this is important to stop paedophiles working in childcare, for example, but that is a different need from that of searching the population to see who might be a sex offender. As things stand I have seen no evidence to suggest that the current UK system of having the police look up background details and criminal records on request is inadequate for the purpose of protecting the public while at the same time protecting the general rights that even a sex offender should have as a human being.
Back from the lovely weather and scenary in Cornwall to the “civilised”, foodless London habitation.
Elections
Monday, September 27th, 2004If anyone is ready to celebrate the eventual re-election of Bush, it’s Al Qaeda. Bush is Al Qaeda’s best recruiting sergeant
- Sir Ivor Roberts
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