🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <HARKCOM.90Nov21080149@potato.pa.Yokogawa.Co.jp> harkcom@potato.pa.Yokogawa.Co.jp (Alton Harkcom) writes:

   In article <MPF.90Nov19140732@triplea.cs.umd.edu>
       mpf@triplea.cs.umd.edu (Martin Farach) writes:

    =}Actually, the french are "paying homage" to IBM in a big way.  The
    =}french word for byte is octet!!!

      The word octet is used to refer to 8 bits (8 = oct). It is not only
   used in France though. I've read a lot of documents that deal with
   portability of software that uses octet in this way to avoid confusion.

Perhaps I was unclear.  The French Academy has explicitly declared
that the word "byte" is incorrect in French and that the French word
for "byte" is "octet."  The Spanish Academy followed suit soon
thereafter and declared that the Spanish word for "byte" is "octeto."
It may be the case that native French speakers use the word "byte,"
but if they do, they are not speaking French.  I am a native speaker
of Spanish and I often use the word "byte" in Spanish because I refuse
to use the word "octeto" (except, of course, if I am refering to 8
bits).  So no matter what the root of the words "octet" or "octeto"
are (which is obviously 8 = oct), these are the official word for
"byte" in French and Spanish, respectively.

English speakers should note that in French and Spanish, custom does
not directly dictate what words are in or not in the language as it
does in English.  There is a group for each language (the French and
Spanish Academies) which determine what is or isn't French or Spanish.
These bodies can be influenced by custom, but, particularly in the
case of the French Academy, are not bound by it.

Thus, I should have said, the *French Academy* (as well as the Spanish
Academy) is paying homage to IBM.  It is to the credit of French
speakers that many of them use the word "mot" and Spanish speakers use
the word "palabra" - both of which mean "word".

I hope I'm not overstating the point, but I have gotten many messages
telling me that octet means 8, to which of course I reply that that's
what it *should* mean.

Martin Farach

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Martin Farach						mpf@cs.umd.edu
University of Maryland
Department of Computer Science
College Park, Maryland 20742