From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [10.30.226.201]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8CB8E31A66 for ; Mon, 27 Nov 2023 15:13:23 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="Z94g+mJH" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id A0971C2BCFE; Mon, 27 Nov 2023 15:13:21 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1701098003; bh=gGkMZzmthMKR9AMR3siFMbwinhvsbh6Egm6gmRokfnk=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=Z94g+mJHGVYUl1jCckMZ9S+4kFu0FcdenpyZkbZKpEdO5zaJSm5mZNL09PjmrRYEb JAmCK662H1RTr/X13lv7SY52iURG0fPoautRm+y8xxTNQPjKj09Inzi3lOQ7ilrfYe 36SZ/U3m/BsdEECiW43sUbsIvZGxeVz783k8cVjyyqWIuncUzWVEE8nudbjWThvQ4h YY9uYfKRBXHWl0rnDWvEdKmkvjGSHxhOmszxkZO9u7HtUTBwLYxMtJcs6QJ7i4+Phw A1lRu5AKF+JW3C/jkMIfBs2aFx6xQf89Oxl7zsBaYJU57zVOe4h+PVCEB32u2Z1tNV kuDgkQrWlRMWg== Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2023 16:13:19 +0100 From: Alejandro Colomar To: Zack Weinberg Cc: Jonny Grant , Paul Eggert , Carlos O'Donell , GNU libc development , 'linux-man' Subject: Re: catenate vs concatenate (was: strncpy clarify result may not be null terminated) Message-ID: References: <16cc15a4-cfc0-49f4-9ebf-ecf0901700ce@app.fastmail.com> <8ebee0fc-1e77-41d9-8feb-8c1083a30a93@cs.ucla.edu> <4a9a3209-ad1f-44be-b0bf-bba23a9cb085@app.fastmail.com> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-man@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha512; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="34X8lL5pPPhbGldX" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: --34X8lL5pPPhbGldX Content-Type: text/plain; protected-headers=v1; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2023 16:13:19 +0100 From: Alejandro Colomar To: Zack Weinberg Cc: Jonny Grant , Paul Eggert , Carlos O'Donell , GNU libc development , 'linux-man' Subject: Re: catenate vs concatenate (was: strncpy clarify result may not be null terminated) On Mon, Nov 27, 2023 at 04:08:17PM +0100, Alejandro Colomar wrote: > Hi Zack, >=20 > On Mon, Nov 27, 2023 at 09:33:56AM -0500, Zack Weinberg wrote: > > [all attribution deleted because it was so tangled I couldn't make > > sense of it] > >=20 > > >> Rather than "catenation", in my experience "concatenation" is the > > >> common term >=20 > The above was Jonny Grant. >=20 > > > We began fighting this pomposity before v7. There has only been > > > backsliding since. "Catenate" is crisper, means the same thing, >=20 > The above was Doug McIlroy. >=20 > > [English pedant mode on] > >=20 > > "Concatenate" is the correct term; "catenate" means something completely > > different, probably "hang between two posts like a chain". You can't > > chop prefixes off a Latinate word and have it still mean the same thing. >=20 > [Latin pedant mode on] >=20 > contatenate comes from the Latin concatenare. The prefix "con-" means > "join", "together", and "catena" means "chain". > >=20 > catenate comes from the Latin catenare, which AFAICS, seems a synonym. > It just drops the redundant "con-" prefix, since "catena" already > implies it. > >=20 > English isn't as propense as other Latin languages to have such synonyms s/other// > where one of them simply adds a redundant prefix or suffix, but Catalan > or Spanish for example have several such cases. >=20 > [Latin pedant mode off] >=20 > > [English pedant mode off] > >=20 > > Also, and much more importantly, "concatenate" is used at least 100x > > more often than "catenate" in modern English, and that means it's the > > word that a randomly selected reader of the manpages is more likely to > > know, and, therefore, the word that the manpages should be using. > >=20 > > https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=3Dconcatenate%2Ccatenate&= year_start=3D1800&year_end=3D2019&corpus=3Den-2019&smoothing=3D3 >=20 > Heh, Paul sent a patch for changing it to append, which I applied, since > it reads better, even if it removes the mnemonics of cat for catenate. :) >=20 > Cheers, > Alex >=20 > --=20 > --=20 --34X8lL5pPPhbGldX Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAABCgAdFiEE6jqH8KTroDDkXfJAnowa+77/2zIFAmVksg8ACgkQnowa+77/ 2zLJiA/9ESQjPMQ+wmHzsHoZ91vDX6ERsb73xw1gDY8LRTBMyrPWpLbrLran60Vt 4JnPIj26Lu8aPaEwT5KUxLKJz0DlEsnf3jnzG2ULzWNwRqelM8/bMJv3pks1f5Rf BJaCriwrhlxxezOIo15OvgP7JvnnqbXGvk6YSx9ziVjti11JMV7S3lDHZtdqt6wC x/kOzrmIxjul8+BUGIFOqMyCuQZoigsxPTRM3LnJo+aSwEHfCTDmaX9pACw5exZO I6/H1IWAzo8gDIy7ijvGP7df0nnLvg6Fwtw/N0vA8M5wjcXpEWlrHNWrrj00oPeu zayJWPTEJWomQd0Bbh6YJfWBHyl1WmZl60hOQmYOr3+zYD9rb3vIghtwmr6MHQb0 wgkKbLtPpxNvtH6AqJAloFw+hr48WkviPdmwf9JUSBjYAdihm75byRyj2AOIQV6F f2AlCsfBxILaxgTMARNJQDloF+dsv2xp7ayEVFdKIMjWhGc8Rc+C+q/AlKAQbqLX 2g9fn1qD7WSoo7IwAJe8lhjjlKv4YRA3Trmn/Is8oVZiLYBtJtBQvte74uV/J01R KlwdwyOZtb7SXo4CqTfBH6xWZRpPVjOx0lZCi3hiETDT9BMcq/sZriba109MbJ1w jzZCw+f5MfsyKFQg1zDLmQfydFdqtDY4PZKrsehNfW+g3SamXoY= =5jsW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --34X8lL5pPPhbGldX--