From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: To non-native English writers: expunging the solecism "This allows to do something." Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2016 12:51:56 +0000 Message-ID: <20160125125156.GB4500@acm.fritz.box> References: <20160124210602.GA7711@acm.fritz.box> <87fuxmzj03.fsf@rub.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1453726200 18754 80.91.229.3 (25 Jan 2016 12:50:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2016 12:50:00 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stephen Berman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jan 25 13:49:51 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aNgac-0004ua-Le for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 13:49:50 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:38317 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNgab-0001lk-UE for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 07:49:49 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46807) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNgaO-0001lP-KV for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 07:49:37 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNgaJ-0007tC-LD for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 07:49:36 -0500 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]:15679) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNgaJ-0007t3-C5 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 07:49:31 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 16186 invoked by uid 3782); 25 Jan 2016 12:49:29 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p548A43AD.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [84.138.67.173]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 13:49:27 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 5877 invoked by uid 1000); 25 Jan 2016 12:51:56 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87fuxmzj03.fsf@rub.de> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: FreeBSD 9.x X-Received-From: 193.149.48.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:198758 Archived-At: Hello, Steve. On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 11:54:04PM +0100, Stephen Berman wrote: > On Sun, 24 Jan 2016 21:06:02 +0000 Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > For some time I have been irritated by sentences of the form "This > > allows to do something" in our source and documentation. > > Such a sentence formation is NOT ENGLISH. The verb "allow" absolutely > > requires a direct object, not an infinitive verb. This direct object > > can be one of various things: > [...] > > The same considerations also apply to "permit", "enable", and "prevent" > > (although the preposition after "prevent" is always "from", never "to"). > > I have done my best to expunge these solecisms from our source and > > documentation files (including NEWS). PLEASE take care to avoid adding > > any new ones! > You missed some instances, which I found by running rgrep on the Emacs > source tree with this regexp (without the quotes): > "[^-]\(allow\|enable\|permit\|prevent\|require\)[^-de ]* to " Yes, I'd overlooked "require"; but there are instances of "requires to" which are OK. The regexp I ended up using was: '\b\(require\|allow\|prevent\|permit\|enable\)s\? to\b' , and some fancy playing around with -A1 and -B1 flags to grep to find instances (and there were a few) where the verb is at the end of a line and the "to" at the beginning of the next line (modulo comment markers, etc.). > This does, however, also return several false positives, most of them > with "require" (one is written as `require' and one or two of the others > should probably be quoted like that). I don't have time in the next few > days to commit a fix for these, so if you do, please go ahead. Well, I've knocked down quite a few more instances. I can't guarantee there're none left, of course, but there aren't many. > Steve Berman -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).