| 1 |
On Sunday 11 October 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote: |
| 2 |
> On Sunday 11 October 2009 13:22:48 Albert Hopkins wrote: |
| 3 |
> > On Sun, 2009-10-11 at 13:18 +0200, Justin wrote: |
| 4 |
> > > I would say it is about just to many germans who are translating |
| 5 |
> > > german |
| 6 |
> > > words literally into english and as the the german word for package is |
| 7 |
> > > "Paket" they come up with packet. |
| 8 |
> > |
| 9 |
> > Oh wow I did not know that. See I knew it had to have some reasonable |
| 10 |
> > explanation. Thanks for the education. |
| 11 |
> |
| 12 |
> Well, at least now we know that English contains at least one word that is |
| 13 |
> less ambiguous than the German equivalent. |
| 14 |
> |
| 15 |
> I would not have thought it could be done. |
| 16 |
|
| 17 |
Packet in English is almost always correctly used to denote a format of |
| 18 |
network transmitted data (in the context of a conversation about IT and |
| 19 |
computers) which is routable: |
| 20 |
|
| 21 |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_(information_technology) |
| 22 |
|
| 23 |
The word packet also has other meanings like: a 'small amount of', a 'package |
| 24 |
of' and can be used in the context of money (one's salary or earnings), |
| 25 |
crisps, condoms, chewing-gums, etc. |
| 26 |
|
| 27 |
Therefore the word packet can be ambiguous in English too, if the context in |
| 28 |
which it is mentioned is not known. |
| 29 |
-- |
| 30 |
Regards, |
| 31 |
Mick |
Archives