From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/4494 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Vaughan Pratt Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: abutment = aboutement? Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:06:19 -0700 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241019981 13565 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:46:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:46:21 +0000 (UTC) To: categories Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Aug 19 22:02:23 2008 -0300 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:02:23 -0300 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1KVc3y-0004dC-UL for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:00:39 -0300 Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 29 Original-Lines: 29 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:4494 Archived-At: I'm with Michel on this one: > Just a remark about "abutment": it translates the French "aboutement", > with a rather different meaning than "aboutissement". The latter is > closer to the "ending" (of some process; with possibly a little shade > of "fatality" in it). > > The two words are related, and I don't know whether the mathematical > idea behind makes "abutment" good, or even better, but I just wanted > to mention the difference. Not a single abutment in any of the following YouTube videos posted by their proud aboutisseurs. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aboutissement&search_type= Evidently G needed a word with the sense of "limit" or "completion" that didn't overload terms that already had technical meanings in that context while itself having a technical ring to it, which "aboutissement" seems to do nicely in French. Something like "terminus" might serve this purpose in English. An abutment is an engineering construct for butting two things together, often in the context of bridges, whether over a river or between teeth, and seems quite unsuitable for this purpose. Vaughan