Re: Boolean or boolean

[Sean Fitzpatrick <Sean -dot- Fitzpatrick -at- SMED -dot- COM>]

How much more authoritative than the cited references can you get? FWIW, the
latest edition of the IBM Dictionary of Computing repeats the definition from
the American National Standard Dictionary for Information Systems, ANSI
X3.172-1990:
  "Boolean-- Pertaining to the processes used in the algebra formulated by
George Boole."
All combined forms of Boolean are given the initial cap.

When your engineering buddies say that only liberal arts majors capitalize
Boolean, tell them that's why liberal arts majors are hired.  Once upon a time,
the world got fed up with products that reflected the perverted, introverted,
graceless, gadget-happy conglomeration of tics and idiosyncrasies that pass for
personality among engineers.  The world told the engineers to write some
documentation.  It didn't take long to figure out that was an experience better
not repeated, like eating a raw tarantula, and so we entered the age of the
Technical Writer.

That was probably another wrong turn.  We should have insisted that engineers
design products that help us do what WE want to do, do it easily, and don't
need documentation.  But we didn't, so we still have products that reflect the
perverted, introverted, graceless, gadget-happy conglomeration of tics and
idiosyncrasies that pass for personality among engineers, but we don't have to
let them soil our documentation with their techie-mumbo jargon (see
http://stc.org/region2/phi/n&v/gram1196.html).

If that doesn't bring them round, fawning and licking your hand, ask them why
they aren't willing to give some recognition to the eponym who made their
livelihood possible.  Without Boole, we'd still be writers, but they'd be
repairing toasters.

Sean Fitzpatrick
Shared Medical Systems, Malvern, PA
sean -dot- fitzpatrick -at- smed -dot- com



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