The names "left" and "right"
Lassi Kortela
(05 Jun 2020 15:27 UTC)
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Re: The names "left" and "right"
(no sender)
(05 Jun 2020 15:39 UTC)
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Re: The names "left" and "right"
John Cowan
(05 Jun 2020 16:35 UTC)
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Re: The names "left" and "right"
Lassi Kortela
(05 Jun 2020 17:08 UTC)
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Re: The names "left" and "right" (no sender) (05 Jun 2020 17:17 UTC)
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Re: The names "left" and "right"
John Cowan
(05 Jun 2020 17:18 UTC)
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Re: The names "left" and "right" Marc Nieper-WiÃkirchen 05 Jun 2020 17:17 UTC
By the way, if the two alternatives of the Either type had been named Ok/Err, I wouldn't have insisted that the Err payload should also allow multiple objects. But when we say Right/Left, we also have a completely symmetric case in mind (not necessarily connected to errors), so the payloads should also behave symmetrically. Am Fr., 5. Juni 2020 um 19:08 Uhr schrieb Lassi Kortela <xxxxxx@lassi.io>: > > > For the first application, we use "Right" in the sense of right = true > > = correct = ok. > > That's clever. I had never noticed the intentional pun. > > > In this case, Ok/Err would also be ok (another pun not intended). > > > > Indeed, the ambiguity between the meanings 'opposite of left' and > > 'straight, correct' goes back to Proto-Indo-European six thousand years > > ago. > > Pretty wild. > > > I was going to say that Lassi, who speaks a Uralic language, is > > excused from noticing this pun, but it seems that Finnish _suora_ has > > both meanings too, probably because its root is borrowed from Common > > Germanic _sta-_ 'stand'. In Hungarian (very distantly related to > > Finnish) they are utterly different. > > The Finnish words for left and right are "vasen" and "oikea". Like its > English counterpart, "oikea" shares the connotation of "correct": "oikea > vastaus" is both literally and figuratively equivalent to "the right > answer". "Suora" means "straight" (as in a straight line). It is a > literal word only and does not have figurative connotations such as > "correct". However, the inflection "suoraan" means "directly" and is > used semi-figuratively to say that something is accomplished in the > easiest or fastest way. > > I don't know any Hungarian, sadly. > > > At least English uses "Go straight!" and "Go right!" as unambiguous > > driving directions. > > This is the case (no pun intended) here as well. "Mene suoraan" (go > straight) and "käänny oikealle" (turn right).