From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: emacs-30 baaf97ce1a1: ; Fix some ungrammatical uses of "allows to" Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2024 22:18:59 +0300 Message-ID: <86cylpes4c.fsf@gnu.org> References: <86h6b1ewop.fsf@gnu.org> <87ed65al96.fsf@zephyr.silentflame.com> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="32758"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Sean Whitton Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Aug 30 21:19:55 2024 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1sk7A1-0008If-KQ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 30 Aug 2024 21:19:53 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1sk79G-0008H2-HE; Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:19:06 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1sk79E-0008BH-Mh for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:19:04 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1sk79D-0008Qt-Ic; Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:19:03 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From:Date: mime-version; bh=qxuDGf2Wlv2OvGqdlqZwtadTinjqexNvRf5AuoHrmCw=; b=DyAgd/zQ5k2/ 0heMg7x3qYyCZycwpekngsdrfJyw1OTiIrLCUk437Gfrw67A7vTy9+bM4/WTRadPCeudCRvR/Apn+ 5pDmHkwLYs0RNsZPxf6YiJkxCkqHjjyQtQoKqEosjT9rAAzSDMfgCfKrARdfjNDpsYgZ8WhxA8U1J 8JuNeeXUGwJJAq6dANMXO+W/tZoMTLGpt5y7C/qHFG3+aD5NdNRXeuSRVSgzzMVhMBLp0ER/pkgEV jTvaY6mylPNdRidrqO85EQpcSu2AhKDjXw4T4uq+/PasuaNjy/t59FhTfALkdOlRDpEZIxBPes3kc JBlJIsXlFEX3KqdMzZzuRA==; In-Reply-To: <87ed65al96.fsf@zephyr.silentflame.com> (message from Sean Whitton on Fri, 30 Aug 2024 20:00:53 +0100) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:323214 Archived-At: > From: Sean Whitton > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org > Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2024 20:00:53 +0100 > > It's just m4/gnulib-common.m4 I should undo, right? No, not just that. Quite a few m4/*.m4 files are from Gnulib. You need to look at the Git history to know which ones. > Or do we not need to undo it now, and just wait for the next gnulib > import? We don't need to undo, but we definitely should tell Gnulib folks about the issue. > > More generally, "allows to" is AFAIK not necessarily a grammatical > > mistake, it's a stylistic preference. So this kind of changes should > > not have been made automatically and without discussion. > > It's not just stylistic -- it's certainly incorrect in American English, > which is Emacs's dialect. I disagree, but that is not the important aspect of this. The important aspect is that changing grammar should not make the text harder to read and understand. By mechanically changing those places to be grammatically you definitely made at least some of the text more awkward and hard to read. E.g., look at this one: -The command @code{recover-file} no longer allows to display the diffs +The command @code{recover-file} no longer allows displaying the diffs Does this really read well to you? Or how about this one: -dnl The first variable allows to distinguish all three cases. +dnl The first variable allows distinguishing all three cases. "Allows distinguishing"? really? You should have instead reworded the text to avoid the use of these constructs, making the text more clear and side-stepping the issue of "allow to" entirely.