From owner-freebsd-chat Tue May 21 6:13:54 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from excalibur.skynet.be (excalibur.skynet.be [195.238.3.90]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 060A537B403 for ; Tue, 21 May 2002 06:13:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [10.0.1.4] (ip-27.shub-internet.org [194.78.144.27] (may be forged)) by excalibur.skynet.be (8.11.6/8.11.6/Skynet-OUT-2.19) with ESMTP id g4LDCrH12877; Tue, 21 May 2002 15:12:54 +0200 (MET DST) (envelope-from ) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: bs663385@pop.skynet.be Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: X-Grok: +++ath X-WebTV-Stationery: Standard; BGColor=black; TextColor=black Reply-By: Wed, 1 Jan 1984 12:34:56 +0100 X-Message-Flag: Your copy of Outlook will expire in 3 days. Please contact Microsoft about purchasing a new license. Remember: software piracy is a felony! Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 14:56:05 +0200 To: Jamie Bowden , Rahul Siddharthan From: Brad Knowles Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/alpha/alpha clock.c Cc: Terry Lambert , Alexey Dokuchaev , Brad Knowles , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 5:21 AM -0700 2002/05/21, Jamie Bowden wrote: > How about we just nitpick your grammar instead? you wouldn't say "I'm > sending you an mail," and it's just as inappropriate a usage with > reference to electronic mail. > > Somewhere, hiding in this message, is a misspelling or grammatical error, > as is customary. Nah, here Rahul is actually correct. You use "an e-mail" or "an email" either way, because of the a/an issue with the following word beginning with a consonant vs. a vowel. The real problem is when you are referring to something via an acronym or initialism, and the acronym/initialism sounds like it begins with a vowel, whereas the actual phrase spelled out begins with a consonant. Take "WWW" for example -- is it "an WWW page" or "a WWW page"? Clearly, if you were to spell it out, it would be "a world-wide web page", but how do you deal with the initialism? -- Brad Knowles, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message