[PD] defining "list" and "anything"

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004, Lex Ein wrote:

> Paul stopped playing, letting the Lizst languish, and listed leeward as
> he picked a piece from a pack of purple papers and played it, asking
> Dave, "Is this anything?"

Btw you may find of interest (or already know) that a company called Franz
once had a product called Franz LISP. (Since they they renamed it to
Allegro Common LISP)

> Dave replied, "Of course it's 'Anything,' I'd recognize it anywhere."
> "Yeah, but is "Anything" anything?"
> "I dunno, let's see how it goes with Hula Hoop girl and Grinder girl."

Also, a book on Programming Language Theory had one quote as a preamble to
every of its chapters, and for the chapter on Object-Oriented Programming
they quoted the dictionary:

ob·ject [&b-'jekt] (verb)
  t.v.: to put forth in opposition or as an objection
  i.v.1.: to oppose something firmly and usually with words or arguments
      2 : to feel distaste for something

what strikes me is that "object" may be one of the compsci words that has
the largest number of different definitions in use, of course
notwithstanding the one(s) having a humourous purpose. =)

"object" is also, in common English, one of the words with the largest
number of different definitions. Merriam-Webster Online lists 14 entries,
and the above three actually count as only one entry.

________________________________________________________________
Mathieu Bouchard                       http://artengine.ca/matju