Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 11:13:24 +0300 From: Peter Pentchev <roam@ringlet.net> To: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> Cc: Ceri Davies <ceri@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: i.e. vs. e.g. Message-ID: <20040910081323.GB2296@straylight.m.ringlet.net> In-Reply-To: <200409091047.25148.jhb@FreeBSD.org> References: <20040908201737.GG44674@submonkey.net> <20040908182322.L1034@wonkity.com> <20040909075121.GJ44674@submonkey.net> <200409091047.25148.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
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--H1spWtNR+x+ondvy Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, Sep 09, 2004 at 10:47:24AM -0400, John Baldwin wrote: > On Thursday 09 September 2004 03:51 am, Ceri Davies wrote: > > On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 06:27:13PM -0600, Warren Block wrote: > > > On Wed, 8 Sep 2004, Ceri Davies wrote: > > > >Apologies in advance for coming over all schoolmaster like, but I've > > > >noticed a few instances where I believe that people are confusing the > > > >terms "i.e." and "e.g.", and so here's a little reminder/summary: > > > > > > > > i.e. can be read as "that is to say". > > > > > > > > e.g. can be read as "for example". > > > > > > The FDP says to avoid contractions. Maybe these should be avoided in > > > the same way. > > > > I think that would be overkill, and if we stopped doing things that we > > did wrong occasionally then there wouldn't be much of FreeBSD left ;-) > > > > I was "just saying" really. >=20 > The reason for avoiding contractions though is to avoid confusing non-nat= ive=20 > readers, and I think that that's a good argument for spelling out i.e. as= =20 > "that is", and e.g. as "for example" as well unless this type of idiom is= =20 > common to more than just English. I have a gut feeling that pretty much all languages probably have "predefined", often-used contractions for "that is" and "for example"; I can certainly vouch for Bulgarian and Russian. Also, at least "e.g." is very widely used in virtually all grammar textbooks and dictionaries, so we can safely assume that non-native speakers ought to know what it stands for :) Thus, expanding those two or even avoiding their use in newly-written documentation could be kind of overkill IMHO, even though I heartily agree with Ceri that misusing them can lead to confuzzlement on part of the reader. G'luck, Peter --=20 Peter Pentchev roam@ringlet.net roam@cnsys.bg roam@FreeBSD.org PGP key: http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/roam.key.asc Key fingerprint FDBA FD79 C26F 3C51 C95E DF9E ED18 B68D 1619 4553 If I had finished this sentence, --H1spWtNR+x+ondvy Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFBQWIj7Ri2jRYZRVMRAgvjAJ9fUsiymmyQeL88nlYQEKqnX0b24ACfVERp OoNaxUZI1qpfzs/+3gjV1hc= =NZv4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --H1spWtNR+x+ondvy--
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