In natural languages, a phrase book would be quite a different thing from a book of aphorisms. A phrase book would contain practically useful items like "Excuse me, where is the nearest toilet", whereas an aphorism book would have things like "I think, therefore I am."
----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Bron <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 7:38 Subject: Re: [Jchat] Newbie Musings 2: How I got to J To: 'Chat forum' <[email protected]> > Björn wrote: > > Just out of curiosity I would like to know if what APL > called idioms > > is also called idioms in J or if people prefer to call > it phrases in J > > I don't like "phrases" because it is too generic; any J sentence > or clause is a "phrase". Others deprecate "idioms" because it > implies the meaning is unpredictable given the component words > (e.g. "kick the bucket"), whereas the meaning of a J idiom is > completely predictable from (in fact, is determined by) its > components words. > > What we need is a word that means "common, useful, memorable > phrase" or "a phrase that is so common it is essentially a word, > and is > easily recognized and recalled"*. How about: > > Aphorism: A concise definition, notably memorable. > > Of course, we have other choices: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saying . I love WP! > > -Dan > > * This "the phrase as a word" is the motivation for the use of > "idiom", > because as a word is composed of letters, and > its meaning is > unrelated to those letters, so a idiom is > composed of words, and > its meaning is unrelated to those words; I > think there is a technical > linguisitic term for these "component words", > and I thought it was > "lexemes", but WP disagrees. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
