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

[Lennart Poettering]

On Mon, 15.10.12 13:35, Dave Reisner (d at falconindy.com) wrote:

> 
> On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 06:15:18PM +0100, Colin Guthrie wrote:
> > 'Twas brillig, and Tom Gundersen at 15/10/12 17:57 did gyre and gimble:
> > > On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 6:14 PM, Andrew Eikum <aeikum at codeweavers.com> wrote:
> > >> The trouble is "resp." isn't used in English, ever.
> > > 
> > > For what it is worth, "resp." is commonly used in mathematics. I don't
> > > know about technical writing in general though.
> > 
> > Yeah I've seen it plenty times while going through university, so while
> > it might not be used in prose, I've never had an issue with this kind of
> > abbreviation being used in documentation and have always understood it's
> > meaning.
> > 
> > That said, the German abbreviation doesn't necessarily translate
> > directly into an English one, so if there is any doubt just don't
> > abbreviate it.
> > 
> > As a general rule, I would be against replacing it with a simple "or" as
> > that really can change the meaning. This is technical documentation and
> > thus syntax more aligned to common prose is not always desirable.
> 
> Sure, that's all well and good, but if the documentation is written in
> English, and native English speaking people have to go out of their way
> to figure out what it is means, isn't that a sign that perhaps it should
> be revised?
> 
> Personally, I think its entirely the wrong usage of the word,
> abbreviated or not.
> 
> "Start showing entries newer or of the specified date, resp. older or of
> the specified date"
> 
> Perhaps simply be written as:
> 
> "Show entries since or until the specified date."

I deliberately didn't use "since" and "until" in the explanation, to
clarify that the date comparison is ">=" instead of ">" and "<= instead
of "<", respectively.

So, here's what I'd propose:

       --since=, --until=
           Show entries newer or of the specified date, or 
           older or of the specified date, respectively.

Does that make sense to you?

> "Show entries newer or older than the specified date, respectively."
> 
> I don't believe that using "respectively" as a conjunction is
> grammatically correct.

Yeah, the problems appear to be: the German "bzw." is an infix, the
english "respectively" is a postfix. And the abbreviation "resp."
doesn't appear to be common and hence should better be avoided...

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc.