Ben Schmidt wrote:
>> That use of "lambda" exists in colloquial contemporary French. In the French
>> wikipedia, under "Lambda (homonymie), the first title is as follows:
>>
>> Adjectif
>>
>> * Le mot lambda est souvent utilisé comme adjectif pour qualifier une
>> entité indéfinie quelconque.
>> * Un utilisateur lambda est une personne qui utilise un système de la
>> même manière que la majorité des utilisateurs, sans chercher à exploiter des
>> fonctionnalités avancées.
>>
>> which I translate as:
>>
>> Adjective
>> * The word lambda is often used as an adjective to qualify any undefined
>> quantity.
>
> As a native English speaker, I would translate it as any 'indefinite'
> quantity.
Hm, yes, sorry. With its dual Germanic and Romance vocabulary heritage,
English often has two (or more) non-exactly-synonymous equivalents for one
French word, and it isn't always easy to choose the right one. For instance I
don't quite grasp the difference between 'freedom' and 'liberty'.
>
>> * A lambda user is a person who uses a system in the same way as the
>> majority
>> of the users, not trying to use advanced functionalities.
>
> I think 'ordinary' would suit as a translation of 'lambda' in this context,
> as
> well as in the context you originally used it:
>
>> Or is # just a lambda 'iskeyword' character when it
>> applies to a variable?
>
> 'Regular' would also suffice.
>
> Another possibility for the 'lambda user' might be a 'naive user'.
Yes, I think you got it.
>
> Your English is extremely good, Tony. It took quite a few of your posts
> before I
> realised it wasn't your native tongue, and even then, I'm not sure it was the
> English that gave the game away!
>
> Ben.
Thanks for the compliment. I realised in high school that my Daddy had a lot
of interesting books in English, which I didn't want to pass by. Nowadays I
regard myself as "fluent" in English, but I know that in a difficult
controversy I would be (all other things being equal) at a disadvantage to
someone born to the language.
As I once heard say: it's easy to speak English at the level a Japanese uses
it to ask directions in Moscow, but to speak /good/ English is extremely
difficult for a non-native (and even for some natives, apparently, but this is
a different question).
(As long as politicians dismiss Esperanto before even checking what it can do,
politicians from English-speaking countries will hold an unfair advantage in
all international institutions.)
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation ... the other eight
are unimportant.
-- Henry Miller
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