Like Latin, journalese is primarily a written language, prized for its
incantory powers, and is best learned early while the mind is still supple.
Every cub reporter, for instance, knows that fires rage out of control,
minor mischief is perpetrated by vandals (never Visigoths, Franks, or one
Vandal working alone), and key labor accords are hammered out by weary
negotiators in marathon, round-the-clock bargaining sessions, thus narrowly
averting threatened walkouts. The discipline required for a winter storm
report is awesome. The first reference to seasonal precipitation is "snow,"
followed by "the white stuff," then either "it" or "the flakes," but not
both. The word snow may be used once again toward the end of the report,
directly after discussion of ice-slicked roads and grim highway toll.
-- John Leo
Pascal n.
An Algol-descended language designed by
Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967-68 as an instructional
tool for elementary programming. This language, designed primarily
to keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus
extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of
view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact,
became the ancestor of a large family of languages including
Modula-2 and Ada (see also bondage-and-discipline l
summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly
funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of K&...
