[systemd-devel] [PATCH] Reword sentences that contain psuedo-English "resp."

[Andrew Eikum]

On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 05:59:35PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> Hmmm, as I understood the text you linked this usage is actually
> correct, as "resp." means "each separately in the order mentioned",
> which is precisely what is meant here. The diff doesn't show it, but
> this section is about both --since= and --until, hence we explain the
> meaning of --since= first, and then of --until=, and link this with
> "resp.". 
> 
> So, now I am really confused, what's really right and wrong here? ;-)
> 

The trouble is "resp." isn't used in English, ever. Your software is
the only place I've run across it, and I had no idea what you were
trying to say. The link I gave shows that other German speakers make
the same error, so it seems to be a common mis-translation.

The word "respectively" is never abbreviated and, as far as I can
think, only used at the end of a (implied) sequence of two lists. You
can see some places in the diff where I switched it to use the whole
word correctly.

The following examples are wrong, and I would have no idea what they
meant without the blog I linked:
"Increase, resp. decrease refresh delay"
"Increase, respectively decrease the refresh delay"

Switching "resp." with "or" makes it make sense:
"Increase or decrease refresh delay"

And you could go further and use "respectively" to explicitly point
out the relationship between two lists:
"+, -: Increase or decrease refresh delay, respectively"

But it is never "resp." and it never replaces the "or".

Hope this clears up what I meant :)

Andrew