Pointers Are Complicated, or What’s in a Byte?

Re:Pointers Are Complicated, or What’s in a Byte? by chrismorgan on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @02:56AM (#17607346)

This form of subtitle spans back a long way. I don’t know just how far, but I do know that twelve of the fourteen major works by Gilbert & Sullivan had such form, beginning with “Thespis; or, The Gods Grown Old” in 1871.

Many of us have a fondness for comparatively old-fashioned approaches to various things; double titles like that are one such example, using em dashes despite space-separated en dashes being more popular is another (though that one varies by locale), and writing “&c.” for “et cetera” is another (there’s lots of fun history around the ampersand ligature).

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Re:Pointers Are Complicated, or What’s in a Byte? by irishsultan on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @04:33AM (#17607735)

Also for example "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley, which was published in 1818.

But actually it goes back even further, at least to the 17th century, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night#/media/File:Twel...

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Re:Pointers Are Complicated, or What’s in a Byte? by ralfjung on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @07:00AM (#17608316)

> using em dashes despite space-separated en dashes being more popular is another (though that one varies by locale)

Okay so I was told in my English writing class that in US English one uses the longer em dashes without spaces. But I just can't get over how they look, and in German we use en dashes with spaces (AFAIK), so I usually do that when writing English except if it is a paper where my advisor will complain if I do. ;)

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Re:Pointers Are Complicated, or What’s in a Byte? by Sharlin on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @04:17AM (#17607664)

Yep, Strangelove simply utilized the existing trope, just like this article.

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