On 3-1-2012 22:51, Howard Page-Clark wrote: > On 03/1/12 5:43, Mattias Gaertner wrote: > >> The term "circle" was translated from German graph theory, but the >> common words in English graph theory are "cycle" and "cyclic". > > I'm not familiar with graph theory and the possibly specialist technical > meanings given there to words in common use. > > However, in everyday English neither of the nouns 'cycle' or 'circle' > has the meaning 'mutual interdependence' except perhaps as a curious > extension of the metaphor which works poorly if at all. > > Whereas the adjective 'circular' can carry a meaning of 'interdependent' > or 'dependent on itself'. So a 'circular argument' is flawed in that it > refers to itself rather than to an independently established > proposition. But in English you would not normally refer to such a > circular argument as a 'circle' and expect people (apart perhaps from > graph theorists?) to appreciate immediately what you meant. > > Dependency (or interdependency) is the more descriptive term, which does > not rely on a strained metaphor - although 'mutual dependency' is rather > a mouthful.
Though not a native speaker (which might actually be good as a lot of users won't be either): - agreed with Howard: circular would be the adjective that evokes an image of something leading back to itself. I would understand cyclic, but only because I already have skimmed graph theory... not something I'd expect of everyone. - the noun is more difficult. While mutual dependency or interdependency would correctly indicate that both units need each other, it doesn't indicate to me that this is a problem. Circle or cycle doesn't do it for me either, see above. I would just try to rephrase messages to use only the adjective. Regards, Reinier -- _______________________________________________ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus