On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 09:28:20PM +0000, Duncan wrote: > Hugo Mills posted on Tue, 25 Mar 2014 20:10:20 +0000 as excerpted: > > > Did you mean "fated": intended, destined? > > No, I meant "feted", altho I understand in Europe the first "e" would > likely have a carot-hat (fêted), but us US-ASCII folks don't have such a > thing easily available, so unless I copy/paste as I just did or use > charselect, "feted" without the carot it is. Either word works in the context -- I wasn't knocking you at all. I was just testing the fit of the homophone (particularly since you'd mentioned checking the spelling). > Where I've seen "feted" used it tends to have a slightly future- > predictive hint to it, something that's considered a "shoe-in" to use Or a shoo-in... :) > another term, but that isn't necessarily certain just yet. Alternatively > or as well, it can mean something that many or the majority considers/ > celebrates as true, but that the author isn't necessarily taking a > particular position on at this time, perhaps as part of the traditional > journalist's neutral observer's perspective, saying "other people > celebrate it as", without personally 100% endorsing the same position. > > Which fit my usage exactly. I wanted to indicate that btrfs' position as > a successor to the ext3/4 throne is a widely held expectation, but that > while I agree with the general sentiment, it's with a "wait and see if/ > when these few details get fixed" attitude, because I don't think that a > btrfs that a knowledgeable admin must babysit in ordered to be sure it > doesn't run out of unallocated chunks, for example, is quite ready for > usage by "the masses", that is, to take the throne as crowned successor > to ext3/4 just yet. And "feted" seemed the perfect word to express and > acknowledge that expectation, while at the same time conveying my slight > personal reservation. Ack. There's a number of sharp edges like this hanging around. Those of us who've been here for a while don't tend to notice them (or at least, deprioritise them), and it's a good thing to have people saying "do I really have to do this crap?" occasionally. Hugo. > In fact, until I looked up the word I had no idea the word could also be > used as a noun in addition to my usage as a verb, and used as a noun, > that it meant a feast, celebration or carnival. I was familiar only with > the usage I demonstrated here, including the slight hint of third party > neutrality or wait-and-see reservation, which was in fact my reason for > choosing the term in the first place. > > (This is of course one reason I so enjoy newsgroups and mailing lists. > One never knows what sort of entirely unpredicted but useful thing one > might learn from them, even in my own replies sometimes! =:^) -- === Hugo Mills: hugo@... carfax.org.uk | darksatanic.net | lug.org.uk === PGP key: 65E74AC0 from wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net or http://www.carfax.org.uk --- Great oxymorons of the world, no. 10: Business Ethics ---
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