[PD] unposting text from the console.

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Fri, 6 Jul 2007, Steffen wrote:
> On 30/06/2007, at 19.29, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
>> If DD is a size, I wonder how big the PD size is.
> fyi,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassiere_measurements
> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~cat/bra.html

Well that was a joke. What's much less of a joke is that every 
French-speaking knows what PD sounds like: it sounds like going to prison 
for playing with the children. In less enlightened times it was also used 
as a slang word for gay (which nowadays would be denounced as being an 
extremely inflammatory association).

Now, Miller lived in Paris in the 80's, which is pretty much when and 
where the word pédé meant both those things. What led Miller to create Pd 
was a disagreement with his former employer in Paris. Guess what Pd is 
named after. Someone told me it stood for "pay day", but it wouldn't quite 
fit with Miller's humour so far.

Anyway, whatever the intention was, in French, pd users are more likely to 
say PureData than "pd" except when they believe no-one will make fun of 
it. The initials are hard to avoid using. I find that even in French 
people tend to pronounce those letters as English in order to avoid saying 
pédé (I mean in Montréal; I don't have much contact with France).

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| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal QC Canada