Metrical Stress, Feet, Syllables, Genders,Personified Computers etc.

Philippe Caquant wrote:
> It would be quite interesting to analyse command
> languages too, regarding processes. Commands like KILL
> (a process; not the programmer neither the user,
> usually), or ABORT, or INVOKE, or IGNORE, are very
> evocative.
Well, ABORT, INVOKE and IGNORE in normal English don't need human
objects.  "To abort" merely means to cancel a process that's already
started before its completion, e.g., "abort a countdown", "abort a
mission", etc.  The common usage as in the abortion debate comes from
that meaning, "abort a pregnancy" = "end the process of pregnancy before
the natural end, i.e., birth.  I fail to see how "invoke" even has any
human connotations.  How can you "invoke" a person?  Things that are
invoked are inanimates, like spells.  You can also ignore natural
processes or objects, especially ones that serve as evidence of natural
processes or human actions.  KILL certainly does imply a metaphor of
being animate.

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