For someone who agrees that English is getting degraded, you use it pretty carelessly.
Just be careful not to say "objective lens" by mistake, which means something different again. ;-)
So good, in fact, that Larousse, Nathan, Robert, and others are making dictionaries of it. I've got the "Dictionnaire du français non conventionnel" which is hilarious. It's got pages upon pages of usage notes on "cul," with samples from writers with the highest pedigrees over several centuries.
If and when I drink beer, I prefer Carlsberg. Let me make it very clear that I never (and I do mean never) behave in the same condescending manner as you. You jump into a thread with a few smart remarks, hoping to gain the respect and admiration of other posters for being witty and wise. When somebody answers back, you immediately get rude. Guess what - I find it very irritating when you do both, but I'm not the cry-baby here. You are. You're the one who complains about my replies to your often non-sensical remarks. What goes around comes around. I respond in kind to polite posts, but your posts are seldom polite - illustrated by the fact that even when you apologised, you mad sure to mention that you would have done what you did anyway. "I'm sorry I did it, but I'd do it again", how's that for an apology? I'd call it arrogance, and you are arrogant. Some people may be afraid of your mockery and perceived sarcasm, I answer back - and you start whining. You da man!
Geography isn't your strong side, is it? The Oseberg ship is Norwegian, but I get the drift. If I have a chip on my shoulder, it's because you put it there (oh, no, don't start crying again, you're really not to blame; it's probably something in your upbringing).
Speak for yourself. I won't mind being without your "cruft"(?), so goodbye and good riddance. I somehow feel your best won't do, but you may of course disappoint me. It's not like you haven't already.
Which is better: Being imperfect but striving for perfection or being perfect but not giving a damn?
Not slang, really. More like photographer jargon. Optics designers have a different jargon; where it gets annoying is when the same words mean slightly different things. As the previous poster said, the proper technical term is "objective." (It just means a lens that's pointed at the "object." Telescopes have objectives and oculars, where the objective is in front and the ocular is at your eye. You swap the ocular to get different magnifications.)
What last statement? Your English usage? Nothing wrong with it for the Internet, but if you're bemoaning the degradation of the English language, I would expect you to stick to the Elements of Style rules pretty damn close. (I don't, so I don't.) For example, the above paragraph should have been written more like this:
This is a popular misconception. It was quite widely accepted at the time (among educated circles anyway) that the world was, in fact, round. They even had the circumference pretty close to correct. The twist is that Columbus had a different theory about the circumference, which was drastically wrong: he figured that India should be about where America actually turned out to be. In other words, he had it wrong by approximately the breadth of the Pacific ocean, and then some.
There's a pretty big difference in disagreeing about semantics and disagreeing about facts. The disagreement about what "prime" means is about semantics. The disagreement about the shape or size of the Earth is about facts.
Thanks for the insight into optics as I have started photography recently and just learning to use my dslr all this jargon makes it harder for the new consumers like me to get in. When I first went into photography with my old film cameras it was fairly easy, then when i got my canon a70 I had to learn what iso, apertures and shutters meant so i could get a good photo. DSLRs weren't as big step from consumer to prosumer dslr since i had mastered the A70 and understood some of the jargon better. With SLRs I started to appreciate lenses better, and tried to learn technical jargon relating to "objective" lens.
I try my best but I will usually mess my sentences somewhere, but at least I try which makes myself and my friends better since I love correcting them and trying to make them speak understandable english rather than mixing stuff up from slang which has no meaning.
The thing is it "was" but then people changed their minds to think it was square due to the popularity of the notion at the time, then they changed their thinking again to back what it was because it was more true. Some thought earth was cube, a neverending flat straight piece of land, but this is because they were not educated, Columbus may have got it wrong but if it was hypothesised the earth was spherical. This is one of the ways masses got taught by news.
I kind of get what you mean in semantics, it is easier to explain to people if you use the same sort of measurements, but then if that were the case, all people would still be non metric standards such as lb, miles, etc. Kilometer was easier to understand due to decimal type numbers. But I accept that changes won't happen since people are happy with the current jargon that is going around, but for future camera users it would be easier to use more relational jargon since it makes it easier for them to understand how to differentiate between cameras and other electrics.
Not a manufacturer! Hardly even an authority on photographic terms.
HDTV cinematography lenses.
Retailer, not manufacturer.
You said it!
Hard to see how you got the point that lens/lense is slang but missed the non-slang term. Hint: it is the last word in this sentence:
gcse? You are using slang. I had to google it (more slang). It appears that GCSE is a set of standardized examinations that British students need to pass to graduate from secondary school. Apparently similar to what in many parts of the US would be called state proficiency tests, or perhaps AP, SAT or ACT.
More jargon. A pizza is round and flat. Perhaps you meant spherical? Even that isn't correct, as the earth is slightly elliptical.
flat and prime are just words. If enough people use the term "flat" to mean "spherical", then it would be correct to say the earth is flat. Now use that same thought process with "prime" and "fixed focal length".
Every field has its jargon, you simply need to learn it. Jargon simplifies communication. Would you rather say "set the exposure duration to 4 milliseconds and the lens opening diameter equal to one-eigth of the focal length", or "use 1/250 f/8"?
I think you will find that many people before Christopher Columbus knew that the earth is round. (but to be technical it is not exactly round either)
Thank you. To please everybody, maybe we should say it is the original meaning of the term, but not the only one, and I, too, am glad that I found an explanation for it, because usage or no usage, it really makes no sense that a 'prime' should be an ffl lens. I could understand if it was a very fine lens, and 20 years back zooms really didn't qualify. But if there's a need for a short word, lens will do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_lens
It wasn't me who brought Heidegger into this thread. It was someone who probably thought he could end a discussion by mentioning a philosopher's name. Playing the "I'm an intellectual" card may instill fear into lesser hearts, but really! If he can only say he won't quote the geezer, what's the big deal? And all that ended was this sub-thread, so no cigar, I'm afraid.
Judging by most of the posts, very few share your views.Sorry Klipsen, I'm actually on your side
interesting you brought up this terminology issue, and it is the
kind of thing that should be talked about on the forum!
Yes, indeed. But are you saying that they made primes even a hundred years ago, let alone two hundred years?
