A Gainsford writes: <begin snippet> Actually, the real obstacle to the use of "break character" is that, anachronistic or not, most people already understand what the term "underscore character" means, while "break character" produces only confusion. My expectation is therefore that most will quite sensibly continue to use "underscore". </end snippet>
Regrettably, their forceful expression does not endow Mr Gainsford's views with substantive merit. The OED defines the verb to underscore as to draw a line or score underneath, to underline The character '_' does not have this function. It cannot indeed be used in this way. To call it an underscore is thus at once incorrect and rather silly. It is of a piece with Mr Gainford's misuse of the word 'anachronistic'. These things said, dubious language is not genocide; and I suspect that this topic too has been exhausted. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
