6 January 2013

parse

[pahrs, pahrz]

verb, parsed, pars·ing.
verb (used with object)

1. to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations, etc.
2. to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech, inflectional form, syntactic function, etc.
3. to analyze (something, as a speech or behavior) to discover its implications or uncover a deeper meaning: Political columnists were in their glory, parsing the president’s speech on the economy in minute detail.
4. Computers. to analyze (a string of characters) in order to associate groups of characters with the syntactic units of the underlying grammar.
verb (used without object)
5. to be able to be parsed; lend itself to parsing: Sorry, but your concluding paragraph simply doesn’t parse.

Today’s aphorism

‘Plurality must never be posited without necessity’.

– William of Occam (1285 – 1349?) Otherwise known as ‘Occam’s Razor’, the principle of parsimony, which means, the simplest solution is usually the best.

On this day

6 January – the Epiphany, which commemorates when the Three Wise Men of the East visited the baby Jesus, with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The Epiphany is celebrated the day after the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, which conclude on 5 January.

6 January 1925 – birth of John DeLorean, founder of the DeLorean Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan. The DeLorean with Gull-Wing doors was featured in the movie, ‘Back to the Future’.

6 January 1973 – one of Hitler’s cars, a Mercedes 770K sedan, was auctioned on this day for $153,000,000.

6 January 1994 – Figure-skater Nancy Kerrigan is knee-capped in a violent attack as she was about to speak to reporters. Her rival, Tonya Harding, was accused of orchestrating the attack resulting in Harding and four men being charged and sentenced to jail.

6 January 2005 – Ku Klux Klan leader, Ray Killen, is arrested and charged over the murders of three civil rights activists in Philadelphia, more than 40 years previously. On 21 June 2005, (exactly 41 years to the day of the murders) Killen is found guilty of three counts of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years jail on each count.