On 2016/01/07 1:03, Tom Lane wrote:
> Amit Langote <amitlangote09@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>>> "non-existant" is flat wrong, so if we're going to fix typos, let's
>>> fix them to actually be English.
>
>> So, non-existent? non-extant? I seems to me like an 's' accidentally
>> sneaked in when the author of the comment tried to write the latter
>> spelling. But the former sounds more familiar (at least to me).
>
> "existent" is a word according to my dictionary, so "non-existent"
> is fine. "extant" is also a word but it's less common and doesn't
> really mean the same thing --- it carries a connotation of "still
> in existence, surviving". So you might say "Stonebraker's papers
> about Postgres from the '80s are still extant". "Existent" just
> means "in existence" without any particular implication about time
> passing, so it's probably what is meant in most cases.
>
> (Actually, in the particular context here, I guess "extant" would
> be sensible, but it would be rather hi-falutin' usage. I'd go
> with "existent".)
Thanks for the explanation.
Regards,
Amit
