Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 01:48:29 -0700 From: David Schultz <das@FreeBSD.ORG> To: Hiten Pandya <hmp@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cvs commit: doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/disks chapter.sgml Message-ID: <20030507084829.GB15496@HAL9000.homeunix.com> In-Reply-To: <20030507070835.GA71586@perrin.int.nxad.com> References: <200305051936.h45JaAc4099544@repoman.freebsd.org> <20030506224205.J5620@znfgre.qbhto.arg> <20030507014339.2e467c3a.trhodes@FreeBSD.org> <20030506225709.T5620@znfgre.qbhto.arg> <20030507070835.GA71586@perrin.int.nxad.com>
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On Wed, May 07, 2003, Hiten Pandya wrote: > On Tue, May 06, 2003 at 11:00:18PM -0700, Doug Barton wrote: > > > Actually, and according to my dictionary, irrelevant is more correct > > > here. > > > > That wasn't my actual question. :) Let me rephrase. "Given that these two > > words basically mean the same thing in context, what was the overwhelming > > necessity of this change?" If the reason was, "To make the meaning > > slightly more accurate," then we can argue the merits based on that... I'm > > just curious. > > Two reasons: > > a) Use simple english which everyone can understand. > Many people from the far east etc do not understand such > words, while they can undersand ``useless'' or > ''irrelevant''. This is also the same reason for my > "automatic to automagic" change. > > b) The 'insignificant' meaning of the word `moot' is > secondary, while it's primary meaning is the opposite I don't think that there's any requirement that FreeBSD documentation read like a Henry James novel. Some people have colorful writing styles that involve words such as ``automagical'', ``moot'', and ``kludge'', and I'm not convinced that this is a problem. Documentation isn't my domain, so I won't stick my nose into this any further, but unless our translators and other non-native English speakers have major qualms about this kind of detail, I do consider this to be gratuitous. That's not to say that I don't value your contributions; I do. I just find high-level and technical (as opposed to grammatical) clarifications more useful. For instance, changing a section title in the security chapter from ``S/Key'' to ``One-time Passwords'' probably un-confused people who weren't aware that we switched from S/Key to OPIE in 5.0. It would be really great if you instead found more bugs like that and fixed them!
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