From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stephen Berman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: To non-native English writers: expunging the solecism "This allows to do something." Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2016 21:10:05 +0100 Message-ID: <87vb6he7z6.fsf@gmx.net> References: <20160124210602.GA7711@acm.fritz.box> <87fuxmzj03.fsf@rub.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1453752631 18533 80.91.229.3 (25 Jan 2016 20:10:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2016 20:10:31 +0000 (UTC) Cc: acm@muc.de, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Richard Stallman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jan 25 21:10:20 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 1aNnSs-00037I-Nz for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 21:10:18 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:40640 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNnSr-0000X7-Rs for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:10:17 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:59242) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNnSo-0000X0-JI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:10:15 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNnSn-0006lJ-Iu for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:10:14 -0500 Original-Received: from mout.gmx.net ([212.227.17.22]:61351) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNnSj-0006jH-HN; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:10:09 -0500 Original-Received: from rosalinde ([89.245.103.134]) by mail.gmx.com (mrgmx102) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 0M9vnQ-1aHExS37k0-00B2Z8; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 21:10:06 +0100 In-Reply-To: (Richard Stallman's message of "Mon, 25 Jan 2016 10:35:55 -0500") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:Lpl4V/WZ9ohjBDA8MCxNbHNNN3mNY/WpLTb+J5rv/L8uXSxXVpH xlUmUIhDCqUGleam7GbDSSGux59gKGBQkSd+e4Rj7IuiUbZvBnBIfekIHweepwH9iwN3gmE WlkrcCoH2Nh5RJSmCzypxVt7LXMepsx7QLkeY8AdZSTOKQopMXvubg0cZ/wpTgpHBJZzXU0 h3aeyHtzfp+3xFhABozPQ== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V01:K0:YYJ8CeiNVVU=:Umg4I2Md/OTqc7W1nCYO3e 07P1GQh11EN48j0Jiq1F3fdXGYSUJLC+PbIwJG+L9TMy1X8Dr1pMsEBPm4RfqLd+8jxn/LNtr Qn59ZjiOeMmaBeJevQjHlonaK+gmjsKO0dDe2usJ34KPITHJYA31/Q4mJxSj0FDiVMymNi8PP 6yIx3JTR29h+OJKa3NeKENvEQTLxdJiiKMtdYc1Mvw8Ht2gXynrKewASY8WSjtfAOMlTGJ3rL t43kYPSTpTXoHQDcSZzU2OrBVcGkJUN0KgBCbezKCAigZdJe4X18kUtO0adlJDFf31Fdul1ah ivwhw+qDm0QpDS8ZEnYK+Zg652XAGVO4qIOYTkkPsDjHkXqjrgu3cpy7Tj5T9SLvZTnESGYzQ 3yQBz6KpU3NoTnWRONI9pSGJiGTQuAhu+5bcq5tlsWy4tXvJuqMBy4ZO5ZLhWIts2pdMRHn4S awJbdkg6cRho79XpLyFXIKs36IZYQE/ZAbI4qXuIeFd2c0BUcDSFx8hSDh+cqYF6X6rnJjnFA ePVcsZR3d7kiiwjDulcnwkGSpv6vvNrPLeasDNOwfX2MO09CagAOWSK4kG318v/cMQwQy34I1 y9aESAK0zn/SosFnLUlq+5UCXHn3MzY7cG5Msd11WX7ud1HBobOk9LhrKN4UyUuNvICBKMUZl W/4VuJeSuNn62scOR3FaQkub9p8m2n/d2OKy0zrxaVESZkHelW/BAPmJD/cb2rz2zRcPxaThz mFZ/x2WveshL7zwPrtQqeo30GhucfPM1wdpvnHhxotjp6HOfwkxLfSW6CZmI4sp2DrLW16D8 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 212.227.17.22 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:198809 Archived-At: On Mon, 25 Jan 2016 10:35:55 -0500 Richard Stallman wrote: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > > 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 know for certain what you found, but "require to do" has the > same English usage rules as "permit to do" or "allow to do": the > entity that will do it must be stated. Several of the false positives are use-mention ambiguities arising because "require" isn't quoted as `require', e.g.: ./lisp/ChangeLog.2:3416: Use require to load x-mouse. ./lisp/ChangeLog.17:23939: Tweak requires to silence compiler. ./lisp/ChangeLog.11:1159: * calc/calc.el: Move require to end of file. (The latter is of course not even syntactically an instance of the solecism ("to end" is not an infinitive), but was caught by the regexp's wide net.) The object of "require" can also be relativized, leading to another false positive, in fact, one found several times in the Emacs sources, since it occurs in the GFDL appended to every info manual: ./info/todo-mode.info:1946: material this License requires to appear in the title page. For (Though this usage is different from the typical solecisms, since the object here is not agentive.) Sometimes the object of "require" can be elided, if it's clear from the context; this is quite common in "ChangeLog-Speak" and leads to another false positive: ./lisp/gnus/ChangeLog.3:7094: (time-date): Require to make some autoload issues on XEmacs go away. But this is not an instance of the solecism, since the infinitive is not the complement of "require" but an adverbial purpose clause (like the first two false positives above). Steve Berman