Subject: Linguistics, was Re: General formula, was Re: Attribute certificate lifetimes:way too much math, but getting closer to correct

From: Ed Gerck <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 19:13:05 -0700

Bob Blakley wrote:

> Ed,
>
> Here's the other source of apparent disagreement: you're using the word
> "lifetime" in a way I consider unnatural, and it may strike others oddly also:
>
> >> >I disagree. And, there are billions of counter-examples. For example,
> >> >if men's biological lifetime is 70 years this does not mean that all men
> >> >were born at the same time -- and yet they all have the same lifetime.
>
> The word normally used in English to capture this concept is lifeSPAN, not
> lifeTIME. "The span of a man's years is threescore and ten", etc....

Now, we may have gone full circle! ;-)

No, in the above and before I used the noun "lifetime" in the exact standard
English and technical usage that you can find in Engineering, Physics, etc.
As Webster says for its *first* meaning, as a noun:

lifetime (noun): the duration of the existence of a living being or a thing
                       (as a star or a subatomic particle).

Of course, "lifetime" as a "duration of existence" is primarily a statistical
concept -- since there is no certainty about the value it denotes, which
lies in the future. So, when I said that men's biological lifetime (as a noun)
is 70 years this indeed does not mean that all men were born at the same
time -- and yet they all have the same [expected] lifetime (as a noun).

Quite different, however, is to use "lifetime" as an adjective, for which
Webster also quotes:

lifetime (adjective):  measured or achieved over the span of a career
                               <a baseball player's lifetime batting average>

So, if I mention my lifetime struggle to make meaning clearer this has
nothing to do with the lifetime of my struggles to make meaning
clearer ;-)

Thus, when I speak of "attribute lifetime", "radiative lifetime", "biological
lifetime", "certificate lifetime", "star lifetime", "particle lifetime"  I am
certainly referring to the duration of the existence of that object. In very
precise and usual linguistic terms -- using the noun "lifetime".

I am sorry to beat this issue to death (and, to further stomp it next) but
I hope this will clear one of  (perhaps, the only one) item I feel we were
in disagreement -- but, which spawned a series of other disagreements,
including your contention about the application domain of the equation I
derived, which I again assert to be quite general and to make no
assumption whatosever of attribute independency.

> If I'm lucky, I will have the same lifespan (102 years) as my
> great-grandmother, but it's already too late for us to have the same lifetime.

No, you may have the same "duration of the existence" as her -- in other
words and according to standard English, you may have the same lifetime
as her. Here, "lifetime" is a noun. In fact, you can calculate the probability
that you will have the same lifetime as her, within a confidence level -- where
"lifetime" is still a noun and still means "duration of the existence".

However, if you want to use "lifetime" as an adjective then you *need*
to use it as a modifier of a noun -- for example, to denote a quality of
the thing named. Then, you may say that it is already too late for you
to have the same lifetime radio listening experience as your grandmother.
Of course, since you may not expect to have the same lifetime (noun)
as her and you are already into perhaps 50% of your lifetime (noun).
In fact, with so little radio listening experience so far and so few
opportunities ahead (the Internet does not count ;-) )  I say that your
lifetime (adjective) radio listening experience will almost certainly be
less than hers -- though (and I sure hope so) your lifetime (noun)
may the same or even longer than hers ;-) but, such prognosis neither
of us know with certainty since your lifetime (noun) is an stochastic
variable.

>  In the course of her
> lifetime,

(as a noun)

> Soviet communism rose and fell, there were two world wars, the United States
> was electrified, private automobiles came into use, refrigeration and then
> air-conditioning became common, homes got telephones, radio and then
> television became popular, and so on.
>
> These usages are completely natural, but using lifetime to designate the
> length of the interval but NOT (also) its origin is not common.

Lifetime NEVER designates its origin. It may designate:

1. (noun) the duration of the existence of an object, as star lifetime,
particle lifetime, attribute lifetime, certificate lifetime, etc. In Physics
and Engineering, it is usually used to denote a non-deterministic
variable which may be treated by statistical methods -- since there
is no certainty about the value it denotes, which lies in the future.

2. (noun) an amount accumulated or experienced in a lifetime,  as
a lifetime of regrets. In this case, "lifetime" is udes to refer to a
past acquires a deterministic value, as "Alice could not walk in her
entire lifetime of 85 years".

3. (adjective) lifelong, lasting or continuing through life. As
"John's lifetime struggle to make meaning clearer".

4. (adjective)  measured or achieved over the span of a career, as
a baseball player's lifetime batting average.

So, we see that, linguistically, "lifetime" either designates a *duration* of
time or what is collected or effected in it-- NEVER, however, the origin
of it.

I think the problem here is thus a simple confusion.  Justifiedly, I
used "lifetime" as in (1) above, following standard linguistic and
technical usage.

German is even clearer in this aspect, since one uses the word
"Lebensdauer" for "lifetime" in the sense of (1) -- which is, literally,
"the duration of life", but uses "Lebenszeit" for "lifetime" in the sense
of (2) -- which is , literally, "the time of life". However, neither
meaning the origin of the time period.

Thus, in German, we speak of " Lebensdauer" and, of course,
of "Batterie-Lebensdauer" or "Zertifikat-Lebensdauer",  meaning
the expected "duration of battery life" or "duration of certificate life".
In English, likewise, battery lifetime or certificate lifetime.

Cheers,

Ed Gerck
______________________________________________________________________
Dr.rer.nat. E. Gerck                                 [email-masked]
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