I'm sure I'm not the first person to suggest this. ;^)
Everyone who's a programmer knows what camelCase is. That's when you use capitals in the names of variables or functions to make them more readable. For example: setLength() or startsWith().
You can probably see where I'm going with this in German.
Consider a simple number like 19,764. In German, it's neunzehntausendsiebenhundertvierundsechzig. Now, wouldn't it be more readable as neunZehnTausendSiebenHundertVierUndSechzig?
They already capitalize all of the nouns anyway, so why not go one step further? For example: "der Waschmaschinenschlauch" => "der WaschMaschinenSchlauch". Better, no?
It would also help with those crazy separable verbs. If you haven't studied German, you may not know that there's a whole class of verbs with prefixes that are sometimes attached, and sometimes find themselves on opposite ends of the sentence...
Take "zumachen" (for closing something like a window). You can say "Ich will das Fenster zumachen" or "Ich mache das Fenster zu." In my fantasy universe, it would be written "zuMachen".
Anyway, if any of you have access to the person who's in charge of German spelling/grammar rules, please be sure and suggest it. ;^)
The Adventures of a Friendly French-American ExMormon Atheist Mom Living in Switzerland!!!
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Blog Retrospective: Religion & Atheism!
Of course, Mormonism isn't the only religion out there! Sometimes I like to discuss all religions and none:
First of all, there's another religion that's a part of our family religious heritage: Catholicism. My husband is a cultural Catholic in about the same way that I'm a cultural Mormon. So, naturally, we took our kids to Lourdes and had lots of amusing adventures there!
Non-belief doesn't obligate you to give up your holiday traditions (unless you want to), as I've discussed on Easter and Christmas -- including a list of Merry secular carols!
As for Christianity in general, I have to admit I'm not too pleased with it. It seems to inspire some disastrously short-sighted politics, and I'm not convinced you can do much better when saddled with the morals of the Bible. And -- as far-fetched as Mormonism's story seems -- it annoys me to see Christians applying a double-standard of evidence when it comes to the Jesus story. (Their position on the death penalty is also a little counter-intuitive.) Ultimately, I think polytheism makes more logical sense than monotheism+omnipotence. (Spock and Harry Potter also make a good showing.)
Sometimes the believers indicate that they don't think very highly of faith/religion, either, when they try to discredit atheism by calling atheism a faith or a religion.
That said -- even if we disagree -- I think it's important to get along and make a real effort to understand one another. As I explained in a couple of parables about belief, just because we disagree doesn't mean I think you're stupid. And when it comes to personal relationships, it's generally not constructive to harass and harangue people about how wrong you think their beliefs are. Interfaith relationships can be a challenge, as I discussed in "He has his faults, such as being a perverted-democrat-atheist, but....
Even politically, I think that fighting for a shared secular space is more constructive than trying to stop religion (which led to my joke about being a sniveling milquetoast).
Of course, being an atheist isn't all fun and games. That whole death thing is a bit of a drawback. Plus, we're so despised that sometimes even the other out groups shun us. So it's not easy to be "out". Are you? ;^)
First of all, there's another religion that's a part of our family religious heritage: Catholicism. My husband is a cultural Catholic in about the same way that I'm a cultural Mormon. So, naturally, we took our kids to Lourdes and had lots of amusing adventures there!Non-belief doesn't obligate you to give up your holiday traditions (unless you want to), as I've discussed on Easter and Christmas -- including a list of Merry secular carols!
As for Christianity in general, I have to admit I'm not too pleased with it. It seems to inspire some disastrously short-sighted politics, and I'm not convinced you can do much better when saddled with the morals of the Bible. And -- as far-fetched as Mormonism's story seems -- it annoys me to see Christians applying a double-standard of evidence when it comes to the Jesus story. (Their position on the death penalty is also a little counter-intuitive.) Ultimately, I think polytheism makes more logical sense than monotheism+omnipotence. (Spock and Harry Potter also make a good showing.)Sometimes the believers indicate that they don't think very highly of faith/religion, either, when they try to discredit atheism by calling atheism a faith or a religion.
That said -- even if we disagree -- I think it's important to get along and make a real effort to understand one another. As I explained in a couple of parables about belief, just because we disagree doesn't mean I think you're stupid. And when it comes to personal relationships, it's generally not constructive to harass and harangue people about how wrong you think their beliefs are. Interfaith relationships can be a challenge, as I discussed in "He has his faults, such as being a perverted-democrat-atheist, but....
Even politically, I think that fighting for a shared secular space is more constructive than trying to stop religion (which led to my joke about being a sniveling milquetoast).
Of course, being an atheist isn't all fun and games. That whole death thing is a bit of a drawback. Plus, we're so despised that sometimes even the other out groups shun us. So it's not easy to be "out". Are you? ;^)
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