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Posted to dev@subversion.apache.org by Joel Rosdahl <jo...@rosdahl.net> on 2003/08/31 19:14:17 UTC
[PATCH] Minor grammar and typographical changes to the book
Hello,
I'm not a native English speaker, so you maybe should take the
following with a grain of salt. :-)
Anyway, here's the log message entry:
======================================================================
Various minor changes to the Subversion book:
* Made use of parentheses, quotes and commas consistent (using
"logical quoting"):
Like this: Not like this:
---------- --------------
Foo (fie fum). Foo (fie fum.)
Foo "fie fum". Foo "fie fum."
Foo (fie), fum. Foo (fie,) fum.
Foo "fie", fum. Foo "fie," fum.
(Foo fie fum.) (Foo fie fum).
Foo (fie fum). Foo (Fie fum).
* Added a missing space after a </quote>.
* Corrected name of the extra files created when a merge conflict has
been detected.
* Removed some left-over closing parentheses.
* Some other minor grammar fixes.
======================================================================
Re: [PATCH] Minor grammar and typographical changes to the book
Posted by Julian Foad <ju...@btopenworld.com>.
Joel Rosdahl wrote:
> Julian Foad <ju...@btopenworld.com> writes:
>
>>Logical quoting is already used throughout most of the book, so it
>>is right to make it consistently logical. But several of the
>>instances that you have changed are of this basic form:
>>
>> Sentence (sentence).
>>
>>which is grammatically poor.
>
> Agreed. Unfortunately, those are much harder to find with regexps. :-)
> Some other time, maybe.
That's OK.
>>Some of them would be better in one of these forms:
>>
>> Sentence. (Sentence.)
>> Sentence (with additional clause).
>
> Or sometimes one of these:
>
> Sentence; sentence.
> Sentence—sentence.
Yes.
>>>Index: doc/book/book/glossary.xml
>>>===================================================================
>>>- <para> A <command>svn</command> command that is used to add a
>>>+ <para> An <command>svn</command> command that is used to add a
>>
>>There is no point in changing that one unless you make the other
>>instances of "a svn" and "an svn" consistent as well. The trouble
>>is, some people (like you and I) pronounce "svn" as "ess vee enn"
>>while others pronounce it "subversion" or "seven" or some such.
>>There are several uses of "a" and several "an" in the book: try
>
> Ah, yes, that was a bit sloppy of me.
Thanks for doing the rest of them so soon.
>>If you want to revise some of the "Sentence (sentence)" structures
>>and/or change all instances of "a svn" to "an svn" in the next few
>>days, that would be great. If not, I will commit all of your
>>changes apart from ch07.xml and glossary.xml.
>
> Sure. Revised patch attached.
Lovely. Committed in r6943.
> Log message entry:
>
> ======================================================================
> Various minor grammar and typographical changes to the Subversion
> book:
>
I added the list of files here, to fit the standard log message format as described in "HACKING".
> * Made use of parentheses, quotes and commas consistent (using
> "logical quoting"):
>
> Like this: Not like this:
> ----------------------------------------
> Foo (fie fum). Foo (fie fum.)
> Foo "fie fum". Foo "fie fum."
> Foo (fie), fum. Foo (fie,) fum.
> Foo "fie", fum. Foo "fie," fum.
> (Foo fie fum.) (Foo fie fum).
> Foo (fie fum). Foo (Fie fum).
>
> * Added a missing space after a </quote>.
>
> * Corrected name of the extra files created when a merge conflict has
> been detected.
>
> * Removed some left-over closing parentheses.
>
> * Use "an svn [...]" instead of "a svn [...]".
I added a note that "There was a mixture of both."
>
> * Some other minor grammar fixes.
> ======================================================================
Thanks for the good work.
- Julian
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Re: [PATCH] Minor grammar and typographical changes to the book
Posted by Joel Rosdahl <jo...@rosdahl.net>.
Julian Foad <ju...@btopenworld.com> writes:
> Joel Rosdahl wrote:
>
> > * Made use of parentheses, quotes and commas consistent (using
> > "logical quoting"):
>
> Logical quoting is already used throughout most of the book, so it
> is right to make it consistently logical. But several of the
> instances that you have changed are of this basic form:
>
> Sentence (sentence).
>
> which is grammatically poor.
Agreed. Unfortunately, those are much harder to find with regexps. :-)
Some other time, maybe.
> Some of them would be better in one of these forms:
>
> Sentence. (Sentence.)
> Sentence (with additional clause).
Or sometimes one of these:
Sentence; sentence.
Sentence—sentence.
> > Index: doc/book/book/ch07.xml
> > ===================================================================
> > - <!-- Fitz's revised graphic here (Heaven help us if he ever makes
> > + <!-- Fitz's revised graphic here (heaven help us if he ever makes
> > another piece of graphic art ... what *will* we call it?).
>
> It's not worth changing that file just for a capitalisation in an
> XML comment. (It it were a capitalisation in the output text, that
> would be different. If there were other changes in the file, then
> maybe.) And some people intentionally capitalise "Heaven",
> considering it to be a "proper noun".
Fair enough.
> > Index: doc/book/book/glossary.xml
> > ===================================================================
> > - <para> A <command>svn</command> command that is used to add a
> > + <para> An <command>svn</command> command that is used to add a
>
> There is no point in changing that one unless you make the other
> instances of "a svn" and "an svn" consistent as well. The trouble
> is, some people (like you and I) pronounce "svn" as "ess vee enn"
> while others pronounce it "subversion" or "seven" or some such.
> There are several uses of "a" and several "an" in the book: try
Ah, yes, that was a bit sloppy of me.
> If you want to revise some of the "Sentence (sentence)" structures
> and/or change all instances of "a svn" to "an svn" in the next few
> days, that would be great. If not, I will commit all of your
> changes apart from ch07.xml and glossary.xml.
Sure. Revised patch attached.
Log message entry:
======================================================================
Various minor grammar and typographical changes to the Subversion
book:
* Made use of parentheses, quotes and commas consistent (using
"logical quoting"):
Like this: Not like this:
----------------------------------------
Foo (fie fum). Foo (fie fum.)
Foo "fie fum". Foo "fie fum."
Foo (fie), fum. Foo (fie,) fum.
Foo "fie", fum. Foo "fie," fum.
(Foo fie fum.) (Foo fie fum).
Foo (fie fum). Foo (Fie fum).
* Added a missing space after a </quote>.
* Corrected name of the extra files created when a merge conflict has
been detected.
* Removed some left-over closing parentheses.
* Use "an svn [...]" instead of "a svn [...]".
* Some other minor grammar fixes.
======================================================================
Re: [PATCH] Minor grammar and typographical changes to the book
Posted by Julian Foad <ju...@btopenworld.com>.
Joel Rosdahl wrote:
>
> I'm not a native English speaker, so you maybe should take the
> following with a grain of salt. :-)
You seem to have a very good understanding of English and its grammar, loose though it (the grammar) is.
> * Made use of parentheses, quotes and commas consistent (using
> "logical quoting"):
Logical quoting is already used throughout most of the book, so it is right to make it consistently logical. But several of the instances that you have changed are of this basic form:
Sentence (sentence).
which is grammatically poor. Some of them would be better in one of these forms:
Sentence. (Sentence.)
Sentence (with additional clause).
> * Added a missing space after a </quote>.
>
> * Corrected name of the extra files created when a merge conflict has
> been detected.
>
> * Removed some left-over closing parentheses.
Good.
> Index: doc/book/book/appa.xml
> Index: doc/book/book/appc.xml
> Index: doc/book/book/appd.xml
> Index: doc/book/book/appe.xml
> Index: doc/book/book/ch03.xml
> Index: doc/book/book/ch05.xml
> Index: doc/book/book/ch08.xml
Fine apart from the sentence grammar issue that I mentioned.
> Index: doc/book/book/ch07.xml
> ===================================================================
> - <!-- Fitz's revised graphic here (Heaven help us if he ever makes
> + <!-- Fitz's revised graphic here (heaven help us if he ever makes
> another piece of graphic art ... what *will* we call it?).
It's not worth changing that file just for a capitalisation in an XML comment. (It it were a capitalisation in the output text, that would be different. If there were other changes in the file, then maybe.) And some people intentionally capitalise "Heaven", considering it to be a "proper noun".
> Index: doc/book/book/glossary.xml
> ===================================================================
> - <para> A <command>svn</command> command that is used to add a
> + <para> An <command>svn</command> command that is used to add a
There is no point in changing that one unless you make the other instances of "a svn" and "an svn" consistent as well. The trouble is, some people (like you and I) pronounce "svn" as "ess vee enn" while others pronounce it "subversion" or "seven" or some such. There are several uses of "a" and several "an" in the book: try
echo "Pronunciation \"a svn\""
grep "[^a-zA-Z][aA] \(<[a-z]*>\)*svn" *.xml
echo
echo "Pronunciation \"an svn\""
grep "[^a-zA-Z][aA]n \(<[a-z]*>\)*svn" *.xml
echo
It would be sensible to make it consistent even if not everyone likes it.
If you want to revise some of the "Sentence (sentence)" structures and/or change all instances of "a svn" to "an svn" in the next few days, that would be great. If not, I will commit all of your changes apart from ch07.xml and glossary.xml.
- Julian
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Re: [PATCH] Minor grammar and typographical changes to the book
Posted by "B. W. Fitzpatrick" <fi...@red-bean.com>.
Matthew Hambley <ma...@aether.demon.co.uk> writes:
> In message <a06001f07bb7ab8b81d04@[10.1.6.64]>
> Jack Repenning <jr...@collab.net> wrote:
>
> > At 3:35 PM -0400 8/31/03, Greg Hudson wrote:
> > >Mainstream English style demands the punctuation goes inside the
> > >quotes.
> >
> > I think this is exclusively an American style, isn't it?
>
> At school we were taught that this is the "traditional" style. The
> "modern" or "logical" style being to place the punctuation outside the
> quotes. My English teacher was of the opinion that the modern style made
> more sense so we should feel free to use it if we wanted.
It's described in the Jargon file. See
http://catb.org/jargon/html/writing-style.html
-Fitz
--
Brian W. Fitzpatrick <fi...@red-bean.com> http://www.red-bean.com/fitz/
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Re: [PATCH] Minor grammar and typographical changes to the book
Posted by Matthew Hambley <ma...@aether.demon.co.uk>.
In message <a06001f07bb7ab8b81d04@[10.1.6.64]>
Jack Repenning <jr...@collab.net> wrote:
> At 3:35 PM -0400 8/31/03, Greg Hudson wrote:
> >Mainstream English style demands the punctuation goes inside the
> >quotes.
>
> I think this is exclusively an American style, isn't it?
At school we were taught that this is the "traditional" style. The
"modern" or "logical" style being to place the punctuation outside the
quotes. My English teacher was of the opinion that the modern style made
more sense so we should feel free to use it if we wanted.
--
(\/)atthew )-(ambley ---------------\ If something's worth doing it's worth
E-mail : matthew@aether.demon.co.uk \ doing badly until you can learn to
Public key : C991137B \ do it well.
Web : http://www.aether.demon.co.uk/ \-----------------------------------
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Re: [PATCH] Minor grammar and typographical changes to the book
Posted by Jack Repenning <jr...@collab.net>.
At 3:35 PM -0400 8/31/03, Greg Hudson wrote:
>Mainstream English style demands the punctuation goes inside the
>quotes.
I think this is exclusively an American style, isn't it?
--
-==-
Jack Repenning
CollabNet, Inc.
8000 Marina Boulevard, Suite 600
Brisbane, California 94005
o: 650.228.2562
c: 408.835-8090
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Re: [PATCH] Minor grammar and typographical changes to the book
Posted by Greg Hudson <gh...@MIT.EDU>.
On Sun, 2003-08-31 at 15:14, Joel Rosdahl wrote:
> Like this: Not like this:
> ---------- --------------
> Foo "fie fum". Foo "fie fum."
Mainstream English style demands the punctuation goes inside the
quotes. In technical writing, this convention can sometimes lead to
confusion (e.g. 'if you then run "svn update," you will see the
following changes...'), and as a result, I believe some published
writing puts the punctuation outside the quotes instead. But if the
Subversion book puts punctuation inside the quotes consistently, then it
is not incorrect to do so.
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