POSIX Regular Expression Funnyness

[Unix Consultation Mailbox]

In article <5980041 at hpfcdc.HP.COM> donn at hpfcdc.HP.COM (Donn Terry) writes:
>[about the difficulty of collating foreign character sets]
>Remember, we (native-)speakers of English are awfully spoiled by having a
>reasonably regular alphabet....  I think the
>simple model of English may have sped things up initially, but it's now
>turning into an impediment for dealing with the rest of the world.

Then again, English (at least in America) has its own arcane rules
for collating names, one of which (Mc being literally equivalent to
Mac) has only recently been abandoned (about the same time that PCs
took over the business world, I think).  The convention that initials
collate separately from "real" names is still followed by most
companies who print ROC phone books but that's the only weird rule
left so far as I know.

>(Oh well, we make up for a simple alphabet with hideously irrational
>spelling, even discounting the British/American differences :-) ).

The English spelling rules are totally rational.  The problem is that
only about 5% of the language follows the rules.  :-)  Pronunciation
rules are what *really* get me rolling on the floor...


Phil Kos