From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Morally equivalent Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2022 23:05:32 +0200 Message-ID: <87mt9lhqzn.fsf@dataswamp.org> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="40847"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Cancel-Lock: sha1:rbnnEJuIHe0pu9+TdIFax21o0hk= Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Tue Oct 25 11:28:36 2022 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1onGEd-000AQc-I6 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 25 Oct 2022 11:28:35 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1onGEG-0003dF-Tm; Tue, 25 Oct 2022 05:28:13 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1on4ri-0007Oh-Sl for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Oct 2022 17:20:13 -0400 Original-Received: from ciao.gmane.io ([116.202.254.214]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1on4rd-0005fu-Jj for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Oct 2022 17:20:10 -0400 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.io with local (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1on4ra-0001HL-E4 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Oct 2022 23:20:02 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Mail-Followup-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Mail-Copies-To: never Received-SPF: pass client-ip=116.202.254.214; envelope-from=geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; helo=ciao.gmane.io X-Spam_score_int: -16 X-Spam_score: -1.7 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.7 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS=0.249, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 25 Oct 2022 05:28:11 -0400 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.help:140345 Archived-At: Will Mengarini wrote: >> What is a 'moral equivalence' in Emacs Lisp? > > The phrase "morally equivalent" is intended to be a humorous > reference to > . > > Back in a workplace in the 1970s, I asked whether some > printer was a DECwriter or "the moral equivalent of > a DECwriter" (meaning a functionally equivalent printer from > different manufacturer), and got a laugh. > > The phrase was funny because the speech that popularized it > was widely considered to be overly bombastic, and a failure > in achieving its objectives; this was why "Moral Equivalent > Of War" was popularly referred to by the acronym "MEOW". > (Note that the general prediction made by that speech, that > an energy crisis would worsen, came true, and many of the > speech's recommendations have been followed. But that is > irrelevant to the prevailing attitude at the time; it was > that attitude that resulted in the comic implication.) > > Consequently, the word "equivalent" and cognates were often > embellished as "morally equivalent" and cognates; but this > was merely a comic flourish without semantic import. > > But that was half a century ago! Now, nobody remembers it, > and I read this whole thread without seeing a link to the > speech that would explain it. Even with that link, you had > to live through those times to grok the contempt for U.S > President Jimmy Carter that made him a one-term president > and ushered in 12 years of Republican presidency. (Carter > had tried to be what could be described as a hard-ass > liberal, thereby alienating everybody across the > political spectrum.) > > So, the documentation should be patched to remove the > comic archaism. > > Comedy in documentation needs to consider its expected > lifespan. Even short-lived documentation often has a target > audience that is busy solving problems, and is uninterested > in jokes. When the expected lifespan of the documentation is > most conveniently measured in centuries (!), comedy leads to > threads like this. :O Holy cow! Any questions? -- underground experts united https://dataswamp.org/~incal