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

[Lennart Poettering]

On Mon, 15.10.12 11:14, Andrew Eikum (aeikum at codeweavers.com) wrote:

> 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 :)

Ah, OK. Makes sense now.

I'd be happy to merge a patch:

- that replaces the cases where "resp." is entirely wrong by "or".

- and that replaces "resp." where there is a list of strings/items/directives/words
  first by "respectively" at the end of the sentence.

Does that make sense to you?

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc.