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To: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net>
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From: garys@opusnet.com (Gary W. Swearingen)
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 14:34:09 -0700
In-Reply-To: <20050913184952.C50B15D07@ptavv.es.net> (Kevin Oberman's
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Cc: cvs-all@FreeBSD.org, doc-committers@FreeBSD.org,
	"Gary W. Swearingen" <garys@opusnet.com>, cvs-doc@FreeBSD.org,
	John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
Subject: Re: cvs commit: doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/boot chapter.sgml
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"Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net> writes:

>> From: garys@opusnet.com (Gary W. Swearingen)
>> AFAIK, that is an permissible English abbreviation of this:
>> 
>>    The MBR installed by FreeBSD's installer and
>>    the MBR installed by boot0cfg(8) are ...
>> 
>>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^-------(implied)
>> 
>> The second "by" in my sentence is the clue that I've omitted the
>> second "the MBR installed" so as to not repeat it.

> Th 'by' is a preposition. The prepositional phrase does not impact the
> issue of the subject being singular or plural.
...
> The example you gave is not valid because it is only grammatically
> correct when there are two MBRs. One MBR - singular verb.

There should be two MBRs in the reader's grammar processor, if not in
the text; one of them is implied (by the second "by", regardless of
what other purpose it serves in the sentence).

But I'm now out-voted.  Try this:

    The MBR installed by FreeBSD's installer or boot0cfg(8) is ...

which is better anyway.