DST is Daylight Saving Time

DST is Daylight Saving Time

[Robert J. Chassell]

It is awkward and many don't use it, but in the United States DST is
Daylight Saving Time, with a single `S' for Saving, not two.

That means the Emacs Manual has a minor typo.

    (emacs)Daylight Savings

    Daylight Savings Time

should be `Daylight Saving Time' where in the United States the phrase
refers to the legal change in specified times rather than savings.

I realize that except for the header, all uses of `daylight savings
time' are lower case.  Consequently, you can argue that the phrase is
intended to be descriptive rather than legal.

Unfortunately, in the United States, the phrase is often and
mistakenly written with two `S's in `savings'.  That means those
manual writers who grew up in the United States appear, regardless of
the truth, to have been ignorant of whether or not they were making a
mistake.  The use fails as an attempt to be sensible and descriptive.

Perhaps a parenthetical remark would be appropriate, such as:

    (In the United States, the time change is legally called
    @samp{Daylight Saving Time} with a single @samp{s}, although many
    speak of Savings.)

Since the example is a US city, the first sentence

    Emacs understands the difference between standard time and
    daylight savings time ...

suggests the legal change.  That is awkward.  The writing looks
mistaken.  On the other hand, the Node name, `Daylight Savings', looks
right, as does the variable `calendar-daylight-savings-starts'.


--
    Robert J. Chassell                          GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
    bob@rattlesnake.com                         bob@gnu.org
    http://www.rattlesnake.com                  http://www.teak.cc

Re: DST is Daylight Saving Time

[Glenn Morris]

"Robert J. Chassell" wrote:

> That means the Emacs Manual has a minor typo.
>
>     (emacs)Daylight Savings
>
>     Daylight Savings Time

Thanks for the timely suggestion. I corrected all instances of this
typo that are not in symbol names.

Re: DST is Daylight Saving Time

[Richard Stallman]

    Thanks for the timely suggestion. I corrected all instances of this
    typo that are not in symbol names.

This suggests we should fix the symbol names too.
Is it possible to define the new names as aliases or synonyms?