Re: README.EXT -- English adjustments.

On Wed, 13 Sep 2006, Berger, Daniel wrote:

> [ Hugh Sasse [e-mail] wrote on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 11:49 AM] 
> 
> <snip good stuff>
>   
> > -To get char* from a VALUE, version 1.7 recommend to use new macros
> > +To get char* from a VALUE, version 1.7 recommends to use new macros
> 
> "In version 1.7 or later it is recommended that you use the new macros
> StringValue() and StringValuePtr()."

s/Ptr()./Ptr() to get a char* from a VALUE./ ?  This sentence doesn't
say what was used before, which struck me as a little odd reading the
original.
>   
> <snip other good stuff>
> 
> > +which must be less than 17.  But I believe you don't need that many. 
> > +:-)
> 
> "But I doubt you'll need that many."

I wasn't sure what the best thing to do about this First Person
commentry in general, actually.  Thinking about those "rules for
writers" ("Always avoid alliteration", "Avoid cliches like the
plague" etc) one was "The passive voice should never be used" :-)
But README.EXT doesn't seem to name an author, so who is "I"?

> 
> One common mistake I've noticed among Japanese authors writing English
> technical documentation is the word "obsoleted" instead of "deprecated".
> I couldn't tell you the linguistic reasons for this - just an
> observation. :)

And I remember a /usr/games/fortune that said something along the
lines of "The good thing about English is that any word can be
verbed." :-)  There seems to be some variation about such uses,
"party" used to be only a noun, nowadays it's a verb, reaching the
UK from the US, I think. But deprecated is better [though some
object that it sound too much like ... "deprecated".sub(/pr/,'f') ].

> Anyway, many thanks Hugh.
> 
> - Dan