From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Russ P." Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: emacs documentation: what's active voice, passive voice? Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2010 17:53:47 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <4ca8659e$0$50453$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <322eca01-3bf5-4078-9439-57ba9503afc6@k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291953643 2062 80.91.229.12 (10 Dec 2010 04:00:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 04:00:43 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 10 05:00:39 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PQu9u-0005vo-SS for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 10 Dec 2010 05:00:39 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:55689 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQtmA-000276-5M for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:36:06 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs Original-Lines: 24 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.102.146.44 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1286240027 14691 127.0.0.1 (5 Oct 2010 00:53:47 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2010 00:53:47 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com; posting-host=128.102.146.44; posting-account=QXgf4wkAAADkKLOneY6DWJPpPelAjS0c User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); en-US; rv:1.9.0.15) Gecko/2009101600 Firefox/3.0.15,gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu comp.lang.lisp:293131 gnu.emacs.help:181636 comp.emacs:100552 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:23:34 -0500 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:77302 Archived-At: On Oct 4, 11:48=A0am, Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > For technical writing, I favor active voice where appropriate, but in > > some cases I think passive voice is preferable. Consider, for example, > > "The parameters were perturbed, and the test was run again." I could > > rewrite that in active voice as "We varied the parameters and ran the > > test again." But what if there is no "we", only "I"? Then I would have > > to write "I varied the parameters and ran the test again." That just > > doesn't strike me as good style for a technical paper. The point is not > > who did it but that it was done. What difference would it make if a > > monkey did it, as long as he did it right? > > Maybe the parameters might be less perturbed at being varied by a monkey > than by your good self. =A0Who knows? > > > Russ P. > > -- > Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). > ;-) I realize that you are kidding, but to perturb a parameter means to vary it slightly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perturbation_theory