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: Wed, 27 Jan 2016 12:06:43 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: References: <20160124210602.GA7711@acm.fritz.box> <87twm12qvh.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1453892856 14064 80.91.229.3 (27 Jan 2016 11:07:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2016 11:07:36 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Richard Stallman , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Mathieu Lirzin Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jan 27 12:07:29 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 1aONwc-0003A1-SL for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 27 Jan 2016 12:07:27 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:49266 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aONwc-0007vP-5c for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 27 Jan 2016 06:07:26 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:45842) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aONw2-0007Ly-7D for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 27 Jan 2016 06:06:54 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aONvz-0002Mk-11 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 27 Jan 2016 06:06:50 -0500 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]:16511) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aONvy-0002La-OB for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 27 Jan 2016 06:06:46 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 56692 invoked by uid 3782); 27 Jan 2016 11:06:44 -0000 In-Reply-To: <87twm12qvh.fsf@gnu.org> User-Agent: Alpine 2.20 (BSF 67 2015-01-07) 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:198908 Archived-At: Mello, Mathieu. On Tue, 26 Jan 2016, Mathieu Lirzin wrote: > Richard Stallman writes: > As a non-native english speaker, I feel bad when I read such injunctions > from you [RMS] or Alan. I apologise for this. My intention was to point out (and fix) a common error, so as to make people aware of it. > When stating such thing, it would be nice to acknowledge that it can be > difficult to write correct english especially when it isn't your primary > language. Otherwise you feed a power relationship between contributors, > which is already strong enough. Again, apologies. I understand the difficulties in writing in a foreign language (I'm a native English speaker living in Germany), and it is really hard to get exactly right, far harder than making program source work correctly. Was there anything else about my first post I could have done better, so as to avoid the misunderstanding about power relationships? > What about creating some documentation about common english mistakes to > avoid, instead of urging people to not make them? How would you feel if > the same injuctions were made about correctly using Git or anything you > are not comfortable at? Well, I have quite often asked for help with git and have been grateful for the help offered. I think (or I hope), that if my written German were criticised the way I criticised "allows to ...", I would accept the corrections and try to write Geman better in the future. > -- > Mathieu Lirzin > -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).