Eric Lippert

231 reputation

bio	website	ericlippert.com
	location	Seattle, WA
	age	40
visits	member for	2 years, 2 months
	seen	May 3 at 21:19
stats	profile views	134

Eric Lippert develops C# analyzers at Coverity. During his sixteen years at Microsoft he was a developer of the Visual Basic, VBScript, JScript and C# compilers and a member of the C# language design committee. He is on Twitter at "@ericlippert" and writes a blog about programming language design and other fabulous adventures in coding at http://ericlippert.com.

	231 reputation	bio	website	ericlippert.com	visits	member for	2 years, 2 months
13 badges		location	Seattle, WA		seen	May 3 at 21:19

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Jan 20	comment	Word for person willing to argue contradictory things depending on what suits him The history of the ancient Greek Sophists might interest you; they were known for being willing to argue any side depending on what suited their patrons. A "sophistry" is such an argument. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism
Mar 20	awarded	Yearling
Feb 14	comment	Are Americans familiar with the term “mobile” when referring to a “cellphone”? I would add that the use of the allegedly comprehensible-to-the-British phrase "top up your mobile" to mean "purchase additional minutes for a pay-as-you-go cell phone plan" was pretty much completely lost on me (a Canadian living in the United States) the first time I heard it. "Mobile phone" is easily understood, but the "top up" metaphor was a new one on me.
Dec 29	comment	After losing weight, how do I say I can wear my belt tighter? If you're happy about the situation then be careful to imply that when describing your belt; belt-related idioms in English often imply undesired weight loss. If someone says for instance that their company is "belt-tightening" it usually means that there have been layoffs or a reduction in employee benefits or some other unpleasant cost-cutting measures.
Sep 21	answered	What is it called when a non-verb is used as a verb?
Sep 15	comment	“Let's burn that bridge when we come to it” – is this sort of idiom mixing considered a pun, and if so, does it have a specific name? I agree that this is a sort of mixed metaphor, but a "mixed metaphor" is more commonly used to describe the result of accidentally combining two metaphors in a way that does not make sense as a whole. "For me it was stormy in the great sea of life, but then I came to a crossroads."
Aug 16	comment	Is there an American English equivalent of the British idiom “carrying coals to Newcastle”? @Brian: Incidentally, humans are really bad at reasoning using Bayesian probability, even humans who have been trained in doing so. Doctors, for example, are notorious for misunderstanding the difference between probability of someone having a disease in the general population vs probability of someone having a disease if they tested negative. The latter requires Bayesian analysis to work out the correct probabilities. But there are many interesting applications of Bayesian probability to English linguistics; spam detection, for example.
Aug 16	comment	Is there an American English equivalent of the British idiom “carrying coals to Newcastle”? @Brian: But you are forgetting about Bayes Theorem! Your analysis of implausibility is correct but irrelevant to the case at hand if your parents probably knew the expression. Your chances of dying in an airplane crash are very small. Your chances of dying in an airplane crash if you are right now sitting in an airplane are also small, but hugely bigger then that first probability. The changes of a random person knowing the expression because they lived near Newcastle WA are tiny; if they know it and they lived near Newcastle WA then the chance is obviously much larger.
Aug 16	comment	Is there an American English equivalent of the British idiom “carrying coals to Newcastle”? @Brian: Sorry, I was unclear. Absolutely the idiom is from Newcastle-on-Tyne. I meant that someone who was familiar with a town named Newcastle that was known for coal mining, that was named after another town called Newcastle that was known for coal mining seems more likely to also know the meaning of "bringing coals to Newcastle" than the average randomly-chosen human. People who lived in the Pacific Northwest are much more likely to know about Newcastle WA than people who did not.
Aug 16	comment	Is there an American English equivalent of the British idiom “carrying coals to Newcastle”? @Brian M. Scott: It is possible that your Pacific Northwest parents were familiar with the phrase via familiarity with Newcastle, Washington. It was named after the Newcastle in England because the Washington town was also a coal-producing town. So the expression "coals to Newcastle" works both in 19th century England and 19th century Pacific Northwest.
Jul 22	awarded	Commentator
Jul 22	comment	How to express that one is making the conversation long for fun Indeed, nice list. One more: if someone is making a funny story deliberately longer they are "telling a shaggy dog story". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story
Jul 7	comment	Where did the name “English” come from? @Alain: I've been thinking a bit more about whether this is, as you claim, a "basic" question or not. The question of the origin of the word "English" does seem trivial and easily researched. But the larger question -- does every natural language follow the pattern "the Frobbit people of Frobbitland speak Frobbitish"? -- seems to me to be non-trivial. Are there exceptions to that rule? If it is generally true, why is it true? Any characteristic common to every natural language seems like it ought to be interesting.
Jul 7	comment	Where did the name “English” come from? @Alain: Fascinating!
Jul 7	comment	Where did the name “English” come from? @Alain: Ah, but have you ever claimed that wolves are called wolves because they wolf their food? Or that fish are called fish because of their questionable business practices? No? Well, there goes another beautiful theory spoiled by a vexing fact.
Jul 7	comment	Where did the name “English” come from? @FumbleFingers: Ah, but China illustrates the original poster's point. Yes, English speakers call the Chinese languages "Chinese" by formation from "China". But in Mandarin, the country is called Zhōngguó ("the middle kingdom") but the language is called -- well, it is called all kinds of things: hànyǔ, meaning "the language of the Han people", or "pǔtōnghuà" meaning "the common language", or a number of other things. The question as I understand it is about how the names for languages arise; they need not be associated with the name of the country in that language.
Jul 7	comment	Where did the name “English” come from? @FumbleFingers: Your dismay seems to be based on the idea that the word "English" logically must have been derived from the pre-existing word "England". But that need not be the case; one could just as logically suppose that "England" was called "England" because that's where the English speakers lived. Or that both words "England" and "English" were created at the same time from some common root, like, say "Angle".
Jun 10	comment	Why is “f” in a singular replaced with “v” in its plural? An interesting anecdote about this historical fact is that of course the "proper" plurals of "elf" and "dwarf" are "elfs" and "dwarfs" in modern English. Tolkien felt that both words ought to have more of an "ancient" feel to them in his fictional world, so he deliberately chose "elves" and "dwarves". In one of his letters he takes to task the ignorant copy editors who attempted to change them back.
Jun 10	comment	What's the difference between the adjectives “strategic” and “tactical”? I would not describe sacking a rook to immediately gain a queen as "strategic"; that's a classic example of short-term tactical thinking. A better example would be "a chess player sacrifices a rook in order to consolidate control over the center of the board and maintain a strong pawn structure". In chess tactics are things like forks, skewers, pins, trades, and so on. Strategies are things like "control the long diagonals" or "maintain tempo by way of constant threats to exposed pieces", or such.
Jun 8	comment	What do I call a word with roots from multiple languages? Another amusing example: joeydevilla.com/2011/06/01/why-polyamory-is-wrong