Re: Question on pcase

[Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net>]

On Sat, 24 Oct 2015 09:01:46 +0000 Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:

> 2. "Semantics", as a noun, is always plural in English (a bit like
> "Eltern" in German).

It's morphologically plural but syntactically singular, like "physics"
-- at least in American English, but I think also in British English; or
would you really say "Semantics are the study of meaning" or "Semantics
are a science, and physics are, too"?  Hence, I think in

> -;; All yet to understand is the semantic each of the basic PATTERNs.
> +;; All that remains to understand are the semantics of each of the basic PATTERNs.
                                     ^^^
"are" should be replaced by "is".  (Even if "are" is acceptable here in
British English, AFAIK the standard for GNU documentation is American
English.)

> -;; fulfils eihter `arrayp' or `numberp'.  And 3 if the binding of x is
> +;; fulfils either `arrayp' or `numberp'.  And 3 if the binding of x is
      ^^^^^^^
I believe "fulfills" is the usual spelling in American English.

>  ;; This is a pattern form that allows you to match a pattern PAT
>  ;; against an _arbitrary_ expression EXP.  This is not special,
> -;; matching PAT is done as you have learned, just against the EXP you
> +;; matching PAT is done as you have learned, just on the EXP you
>  ;; specify there, and not the EXPRESSION given to pcase at top level.

Why replace "against" with "on" here but not in the preceding line?  I
think "against" is usual in this context.  A somewhat better formulation
is this, IMO: "The only difference from the pattern matching you have
learned is that PAT is matched against the EXP you specify here..."

> -;; If you are used to understand grammers: the above description of
> -;; `QPAT describes a quite simpel grammer.  You make like to try it
> +;; If you are used to understanding grammars: the above description of
> +;; `QPAT describes a quite simple grammar.  You might like to try it

I think a somewhat better formulation is this: "If you are familiar with
formal language grammars, the above description..."

Steve Berman