On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 2:46 PM, Chris Bannister &lt;cbannister(a)slingshot.co.nz&gt; wrote: When you put it like that, I am not sure I understand either All I can say is I read it hm.. read it again hmmm... and then I laughed. Why...??? Well an explanation may be that across widely differing cultures things that were taken for granted need to be carefully asserted. Two examples: 1. Outside an elevator is the notice: "Dogs must be carried in the elevator" Now aside from obvious understanding barriers like: - not being able to read - thinking its just a design not a writing/notice - connecting 'the elevator' with THIS elevator there is one more (and to me amusing) interpretation: In order to enter the elevator you must bring a dog which you must carry 2. This is a programming example. Given an array: int a[N]; a is sorted iff a[0] <= a[1] <= ... <= a[N-1] For most programmers this would be enough to specify 'sorted' but for a math/logic proving software doing a[0] = a[1] = ... a[N-1] = 42 makes that spec true. Ruling out such manifestly improper interpretations turns out to be considerably harder And that is why that snippet of Ralf reminded me of Culture and Empire -- more and more I feel we oldies dont get what the modern world is about. In Douglas Adams words: 1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal; 2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it; 3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation Rusi PS. I 'corrected' the To list taking it as an oversight. If not my apologies -- http://blog.languager.org