Re: [MI400] To the latin experts.

["Blair Wyman" <blairw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday, 10/07/2002 at 07:20 EST, "Leif Svalgaard" <leif@leif.org> wrote:
> From: Harry Williams <planesmart@teleteam.net>
> > Ok Latin Experts.  What is http://www.iaccelerate.biz/  It has a header
in
> > English, yet the text is some language I do not understand.  It talks
about
> > the iseries being faster.
>
> This is from section 1.10.32 of Cicero's De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum.
> and is a standard "test" text. (also known as a "greeked" text)

Just to add a bit to this, the goofy latin you see is probably the 'lorem
ipsum' text.  There is an interesting discussion of its origins at The Free
On-line Dictionary of Computing
      http://www.foldoc.org/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?lorem+ipsum

I originally took issue with Leif's characterization of the lorem ipsum
text as "greeked text" (and opportunities to correct Leif are rare enough
that I tend to jump squarely on any I think I see  ;-), but the 'lorem
ipsum' definition actually offers "greeked text" as a synonym right up
front.  (<sigh>  Just when I thought I knew what I was talking about...  :
-)

I thought "greeked text" was limited to this definition (again per FOLDOC
http://www.foldoc.org/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?greek )

   1. <text, graphics> To display text as abstract dots and lines in order
   to give a preview of layout without actually being legible. This is
   faster than drawing the characters correctly which may require scaling
   or other transformations. Greeking is particularly useful when
   displaying a reduced image of a document where the text would be too
   small to be legible on the display anyway.

   2. lorem ipsum

What's even more interesting, to me, is how dead-on Cicero was in his
insights.  I wonder how this text would translate into MI?  Is MI
programming a pain for which there will be some future pleasure?

-blair

Blair Wyman -- iSeries JVM -- (507) 253-2891
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age,
he had been dead for two years." -- Tom Lehrer