(Still OT) Nationalism, language and monoculture [was Re: Python Worst Practices]

[Rustom Mody]

On Tuesday, March 3, 2015 at 10:02:30 AM UTC+5:30, Mario Figueiredo wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Mar 2015 19:51:31 -0800 (PST), Rustom Mody wrote:
> >
> >I dont know what you are saying Mario or even whom you are addressing
> 
> I was replying directly to Marko. I don't think it is possible to
> establish a standard dialect for variable names in English or any
> other language. 

Eh?  There was some such suggestion??

All that I saw was suggestions like this: [Of course I may have missed some]

Marko: 
| (Spelling deviations are actually minor nuisances. A bigger problem is
| when a Brit thinks they can use their home accent in international
| contexts.) 

> It doesn't even make sense as long as the code clearly
> communicates its intent. Any attempts at standardizing written
> language are just bound to failure due to natural cultural
> resistances, but also the way the spoken and written language evolve
> isn't going ever to agree with some official authority.
> 
> As for your Thomas Merton quote, it didn't resonate with me. First I
> find it hilarious that a 20th century catholic monk speaks of people
> of faith as existing at the margin of society and accepting risk,
> particularly in the deeply conservative American society. That's a
> laugh right there.

I dont understand what you are saying.
Lets say you replace 'conservative' by something more definitively pejorative
eg fundamentalist, backward etc
Now replace 'American society' by 'Nazi Germany'
Do you believe that everyone who was not a Jew was a Nazi?
In actual fact I believe you would have found people on all points of the spectrum
between "Full cooperation with the machinery" to "active resistance to the point of endangering one's existence"

Likewise it seems only fair to acknowledge that Fr Thomas Merton seems to have had all sorts of difficulties trying to follow his vocation and that quote
more or less reflects his difficulties.

Of course you are welcome to your own individual allergic reactions.
Some people need to be hospitalized if they eat one peanut. Likewise some people
seem to stop hearing anything if some religion-associating word like 'God' appears.

Generalizing from specific instance to paradigm is always a dicey business.  Now
personally I suffer no allergy to the word 'God' but in my younger days I
suffered violent reaction to 'pop music' in particular the distortion of an
electric guitar.

Many years older and (hopefully!) wiser I find that the electric guitar captures
Beethoven better than the official version
see the two youtube clips at beginning of http://blog.languager.org/2011/02/cs-education-is-fat-and-weak-3.html 

A similar situation obtains (I believe!) vis-a-vis generic 'Christian priest' vs
specific instance Thomas Merton