Let's lay down a few canonical rules

Taken shamelessly from dictionary.com

ca⋅non⋅i⋅cal

 /kəˈnɒnɪkəl/ [kuh-non-i-kuhl]
–adjective Also, ca⋅non⋅ic.
1. pertaining to, established by, or conforming to a canon or canons.
2. included in the canon of the Bible.
3. authorized; recognized; accepted: canonical works.
4. Mathematics. (of an equation, coordinate, etc.) in simplest or standard form.
5. following the pattern of a musical canon.
6. Linguistics. (of a form or pattern) characteristic, general or basic: the canonical form of the past tense; a canonical syllable pattern.
–noun
7. canonicals, garments prescribed by canon law for clergy when officiating.
Origin:
1150–1200; ME (< AF) < ML canōnicālis, equiv. to canōnic(us) (see canon 2 ) + -ālis -al

It's pretty obvious from this what Shuttleworth may have had in mind when he formed Canonical LTD. But i'm not going to blog about how poorly this name was chosen to represent the brown menace. Instead, we're going to have a little bit of linguistic fun.

Words are really just arbitrary strings of phonemes which can be grouped together as morphemes, to which we attach meaning and history. Phonemes are basic units of sound, and morphemes are basic units of meaning. (I have a t-shirt that says 'morpheme addict'). There's a third factor that can come into play here, called semantics, and change of semantics is one way language can evolve. For example, you can see here that 'canon' has been modified to mean more than just the church and things pertaining to certain Cathedral-like tendencies of the Catholic church. It can also mean official rules or musical prosody.

It's certain that a particular brown menace has been using a Cathedral like culture in developing a rather popular Linux distribution. They certainly are relying on a bit of semantic meaning to support their strong brand presence. As any good Fedora user or Red Hatter knows, one way to dilute a menace is to dilute its brand. Every time you talk about Canonical, you give strength to their brand. But every time you use the word canonical, you dilute their brand!

Make sure to use canonical everywhere you can. A good rule of thumb is to replace the words official and common practice with canonical, or just refer to the rules as the canon. For Fedora, this means we might need to make a few changes. For example, the Fedora Packaging Guidelines would become the Packaging Canon. Since it's now a religious canon, openSuSE and Mandriva will also be bound to them or burn in their heathen ways. Therefore, the name Fedora can be dropped. Any time there is a change in Infrastructure, it would no longer be an official change, rather than a canonical change. If you are a Red Hatter, there would no longer be company internal memos and public statements, rather rumours and canon. Remember, the more we use the term in everyday usage, the less power the brown menace has. For Great Justice.

5 flames:

Anoniem zei

Crush the brown menace!!! Errrrr, wait....

msian_tux_lover zei

Aww another anti-Ubuntu rant. Play nice boys.

Anoniem zei

Geesh, the Fedora community never ceases to amaze me. Time and again people come out bashing the Ubuntu, its community, Mark Shuttleworth or Canonical for absolutely no reason (the bigger popularity of Ubuntu aside).

I have yet to see this on Planet Ubuntu. I guess this shows something; maybe the Fedora community needs to grow up?

Yankee zei

hu⋅mor

 /ˈhyumər or, often, ˈyu-/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [hyoo-mer or, often, yoo-] Show IPA
–noun
1. a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement: the humor of a situation.
2. the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical: He is completely without humor.
3. an instance of being or attempting to be comical or amusing; something humorous: The humor in his joke eluded the audience.
4. the faculty of expressing the amusing or comical: The author's humor came across better in the book than in the movie.
5. comical writing or talk in general; comical books, skits, plays, etc.
6. humors, peculiar features; oddities; quirks: humors of life.
7. mental disposition or temperament.
8. a temporary mood or frame of mind: The boss is in a bad humor today.
9. a capricious or freakish inclination; whim or caprice; odd trait.
10. (in medieval physiology) one of the four elemental fluids of the body, blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile, regarded as determining, by their relative proportions, a person's physical and mental constitution.
11. any animal or plant fluid, whether natural or morbid, as the blood or lymph.
–verb (used with object)
12. to comply with the humor or mood of in order to soothe or make content or more agreeable: to humor a child.
13. to adapt or accommodate oneself to.
—Idiom
14. out of humor, displeased; dissatisfied; cross: The chef is feeling out of humor again and will have to be treated carefully.
Also, especially British, humour.

Origin:
1300–50; ME (h)umour < AF < L (h)ūmōr- (s. of (h)ūmor) moisture, fluid (medical L: body fluid), equiv. to (h)ūm(ēre) to be wet (see humid ) + -ōr- -or

Anoniem zei

Noun
Singular
troll
Plural
trolls


troll (plural trolls)

An instance of trolling, especially, in fishing, the trailing of a baited line.

(Internet) A person who posts to a newsgroup, bulletin board, etc., in a way intended to anger other posters and to cause drama, or otherwise disrupt the group's intended purpose.

(Internet) A deliberately inflammatory post to a newsgroup, etc.