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

[Colin Guthrie]

'Twas brillig, and Dave Reisner at 15/10/12 18:35 did gyre and gimble:
> 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."
> 
> This makes sense to me, because you're reusing well known words that
> were picked for the options themselves.
> 
> If you wanted to hang onto the word "respectively", write it as:
> 
> "Show entries newer or older than the specified date, respectively."

In this context, with this simple description taken in isolation, I'd
struggle to disagree, but then how do consistently differentiate between
a section of documentation regarding two similar (but likely opposite)
arguments vs. differing syntax of a single argument's value? Using "or"
to describe different syntaxes of a single argument and "respectively"
to differentiate the two arguments themselves fits well in my option and
I certainly don't feel it is jarring or hard to understand (although
perhaps I'm biased due to having been exposed to this structure in
technical papers and such in the past?).

Overall, I think consistently using "respectively" (or even resp.) in
the way done already aids clarity overall. That means it should be
generally avoided in the general case when not talking about two
arguments, but that's not overly difficult IMO.

FWIW, I also think the bike shed should be blue. :p (IOW, I don't really
care that much!)

Col

-- 

Colin Guthrie
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http://colin.guthr.ie/

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