Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2009-03-29 20:12:18 - Graham Ellis
Funny Amusing and Funny Amazing ... that was the title of a paper back book that Dad bought for half a crown when I was young, and it was so much fun looking down the rib-tickling things on the left had side of each spread, and the jaw-dropping things on the right.
It's funny [amusing] how one word can have several meanings - indeed, when I'm running Perl courses, I often write on the board "Reading ..." and ask people to pronounce the word. Of course, I could complete the sentence with "is a place" and it would be 'Redding', or "is a skill" in which case it would be 'Reeding'.
And in Perl ...
@reading is a list where each element is a separate scalar or
@reading is a scalar which is the number of elements in a list or
@reading (in quotes) is a string which comprises all the members of the list joined together into a scalar, with a space between each of them.
How did I come up with this article today? Chris tells me that two smart delelegates have checked in already (isn't Skype great!) and I respond with "I have better not come in to work in jeans and teashirt." But it turns out that he was meaning Smart (Intelligent) rather than Smart (Well Dressed).