Phillip Helbig writes:
> Right. The term "obsolete" is, since F90, now standardese, I suppose.
Strictly speaking, the standard uses the term "obsolescent".
To tell the truth, I'm not quite sure why (it was introduced before
my involvement with J3). To me, "obsolescent" just sounds like a
synonym for "obsolete" with some extra syllables added to sound
more sophisticated. I'd have just said "obsolete". Perhaps there
is a distinction that I'm not appreciating. Or then, perhaps it
was all a matter of how it sounded to some people. Perhaps
"obsolescent" didn't sound as strong as "obsolete" or something.
That's all pure speculation on my part.
But although the standard doesn't strictly use the word "obsolete",
I still find it awful easy to confuse the words "obsolete" and
"obsolescent", so I'd not recommend using those two words in a
sense meant to be distiguishable (unless perhaps it's just me
that gets them confused).
--
Richard Maine
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