From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
To: "Lennart Borgman \(gmail\)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>
Cc: rgm@gnu.org, Kenichi Handa <handa@m17n.org>,
Juanma Barranquero <lekktu@gmail.com>,
emacs-devel@gnu.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca,
Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>,
eliz@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Fix UK spelling in comments and ChangeLog entries?
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:39:07 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <85wsk76o04.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <4868E0AF.4020208@gmail.com> (Lennart Borgman's message of "Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:33:35 +0200")
"Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:
> Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>> Hi, Kenichi,
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 09:16:25PM +0900, Kenichi Handa wrote:
>>
>>> Anyway, for me (a non native English speeker), the more helpful thing
>>> is to standardise which word to use (e.g. remove/delete,
>>> replace/substitute, accept/permit/allow, preserve/retain,
>>> put/set/store, property/attribute, vector/array, go-to/move-to,
>>> cancel/undo, etc.) :-p
>>
>> NO!! Different words have different meanings. For example, if you
>> delete something, it's gone. If you remove something, you can later put
>> it back again.
>>
>> You might substitute a fresh football player for a tired one, but you'd
>> replace a broken light bulb (answer, it only takes one Emacs hacker to
>> change a light bulb).
>>
>> And so on.
>>
>> There a few pairs of words indeed in English in which one means exactly
>> the same as the other. It is surely the same in other languages. Let us
>> strive, always, to use the most fitting word, and to preserve and retain
>> the fine control this gives us over our meanings.
>
> That is nice. For some non native English speakers it would be good to
> have a document describing those small differences.
Uh no, it is not nice. The poetry of Emacs is at a different level than
the poetry of drama. The language of documentation should be blunt and
to the point. We don't want to hide differences in the subtlety of
words.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2008-06-30 13:39 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 71+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <E1KC8XT-0007F3-Io@monty-python.gnu.org>
2008-06-27 9:21 ` Fix UK spelling in comments and ChangeLog entries? Eli Zaretskii
2008-06-27 9:48 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-27 9:50 ` Miles Bader
2008-06-27 10:56 ` Miles Bader
2008-06-27 11:40 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-27 12:01 ` Miles Bader
2008-06-27 13:43 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-27 18:14 ` Glenn Morris
2008-06-27 19:10 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-27 19:28 ` Jason Rumney
2008-06-28 13:20 ` Richard M Stallman
2008-06-28 15:10 ` Eli Zaretskii
2008-06-28 21:19 ` Jason Rumney
2008-06-28 21:30 ` Miles Bader
2008-06-28 21:47 ` Juri Linkov
2008-06-28 22:45 ` Jason Rumney
2008-06-28 6:48 ` Eli Zaretskii
2008-06-29 9:52 ` Richard M Stallman
2008-06-29 10:13 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-29 11:06 ` Reiner Steib
2008-06-29 11:57 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-29 18:02 ` Eli Zaretskii
2008-06-29 19:53 ` Sam Steingold
2008-06-29 20:00 ` Lennart Borgman (gmail)
2008-06-30 14:43 ` Richard M Stallman
2008-06-29 20:20 ` Eli Zaretskii
2008-06-29 20:57 ` David Kastrup
2008-06-29 22:05 ` Richard M Stallman
2008-06-29 22:26 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-29 22:29 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-30 5:25 ` David Kastrup
2008-06-30 7:48 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-30 8:16 ` David Kastrup
2008-06-30 8:18 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-30 9:49 ` Alan Mackenzie
2008-06-30 9:42 ` David Kastrup
2008-06-30 10:07 ` Nick Roberts
2008-06-30 12:05 ` Alan Mackenzie
2008-06-30 20:02 ` Eli Zaretskii
2008-07-01 11:06 ` Richard M Stallman
2008-07-01 11:12 ` David Kastrup
2008-07-01 12:19 ` Alan Mackenzie
2008-07-01 7:36 ` Johannes Weiner
2008-07-01 12:40 ` Alan Mackenzie
2008-07-01 14:10 ` Johannes Weiner
2008-06-27 9:56 ` Stefan Monnier
2008-06-27 10:05 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-27 10:12 ` Eli Zaretskii
2008-06-27 10:23 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-27 12:16 ` Kenichi Handa
2008-06-27 12:30 ` Miles Bader
2008-06-27 12:34 ` Eli Zaretskii
2008-06-27 12:52 ` Kenichi Handa
2008-06-27 16:52 ` Eli Zaretskii
2008-06-27 16:54 ` Agustin Martin
2008-06-28 2:01 ` Kenichi Handa
2008-06-27 13:46 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-28 1:02 ` Kenichi Handa
2008-06-28 1:07 ` Juanma Barranquero
2008-06-28 1:50 ` Kenichi Handa
2008-06-30 13:43 ` Alan Mackenzie
2008-06-30 13:33 ` Lennart Borgman (gmail)
2008-06-30 13:39 ` David Kastrup [this message]
2008-06-30 13:59 ` Lennart Borgman (gmail)
2008-06-30 14:43 ` Alan Mackenzie
2008-06-30 18:23 ` Johan Bockgård
2008-06-30 18:40 ` David Kastrup
2008-06-30 20:32 ` David De La Harpe Golden
2008-07-01 1:04 ` Kenichi Handa
2008-06-27 15:38 ` Richard M Stallman
2008-06-27 16:55 ` Eli Zaretskii
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