On Sun, May 08, 2011 at 10:51:07PM +0200, Mathieu Lonjaret wrote:
> > In Brian Kernighan's sentence, s/cleverly/sophisticatedly/ (this is
> > probably a barbarism, but in french "sophistiqué" is pejorative:
> > obfuscation, convoluted etc.).
>
> Sorry, but it's not. it just means complex, and is not usually
> employed to make any value judgment.
> Just look it up in any dictionary.
Just look for the origin: the verb is "sophistiquer"... The usage and
the dictionnaries are inconsistant, since "sophistiqué" (now used non
pejoratively) is the past participle of "sophistiquer" that is
definitively pejorative. (Look for "sophistiquement" too; all this comes
from philosophy where sophiste is not to be taken in good part)...
--
Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
http://www.kergis.com/
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