🚀 go-pugleaf

(The original topic was paging and virtual memory.)

>In article <1181@ncr-sd.UUCP> someone (probably Greg Noel) writes:
>>... Henry is probably too young to have heard the terms used correctly
>>and is using the (usually very reasonable) assumption that if A and B
>>always occur together, then A implies B...

In article <7190@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) replies:
>The meanings of words are defined by how they are used, not by how
>they used to be used.

You are both wrong.

Henry is right in using `virtual memory' as he does; his is the
meaning that is generally accepted in the field.  His usage is
unlikely to cause confusion.  But the meanings of words are not
defined by how they are used.  The meanings of words are defined
by the listener.

Many words are ambiguous.  This is not a failing of the language.
Problems occur only when writers (or speakers) use such words
carelessly.  For example, William Strunk Jr. advises us that the
word `presently'

    Has two meanings: ``in a short while'' and ``currently.''
    Because of this ambiguity it is best restricted to the first
    meaning:  ``He'll be here presently'' (``soon,'' or ``in a
    short time'').

(_The_Elements_of_Style_, William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, Third
Edition, Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York, p. 57.)  I,
however, disagree:  `It is presently raining' is clear, if not
concise.  In its other incarnation, the word `presently' may be
used as an intensifier.  Neither usage stands alone; the writer
must provide context.

I feel I should also mention that Professor Strunk is, in another
sense, correct.  He also advises us to `omit needless words.'  The
intensifier must be justified.  Consider, for example, this sentence:
`Today was and will be a wonderful day, although it is presently
raining'.  Without the word `presently', it means something entirely
different.

While, as White says in the introduction to Chapter V, `... the
young writer ... will often find himself steering by stars that
are disturbingly in motion', I think that the Computer Science
stars surrounding `virtual memory' have long since settled.  I must
admit that I am even younger a writer than Henry---but I am not,
or not usually, a careless one:  I know my navigation.  Henry is
on course.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 1516)
UUCP:	seismo!umcp-cs!chris
CSNet:	chris@umcp-cs		ARPA:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu