From owner-cvs-all Fri Apr 17 21:55:30 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA29795 for cvs-all-outgoing; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 21:55:30 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ns2.cetlink.net (root@ns2.cetlink.net [209.54.54.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id EAA29699; Sat, 18 Apr 1998 04:55:03 GMT (envelope-from jak@cetlink.net) Received: from EXIT10 (i485-gw.cetlink.net [209.198.15.97]) by ns2.cetlink.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA19927; Sat, 18 Apr 1998 00:54:29 -0400 (EDT) From: jak@cetlink.net (John Kelly) To: Peter Wemm Cc: "Dag-Erling C. Sm\xf8rgrav" , cvs-committers@FreeBSD.ORG, cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG, cvs-sys@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Correct English style Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 04:56:28 GMT Message-ID: <35382ed1.10137219@mail.cetlink.net> References: <199804180411.MAA16043@spinner.netplex.com.au> In-Reply-To: <199804180411.MAA16043@spinner.netplex.com.au> X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by hub.freebsd.org id EAB29702 Sender: owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 12:11:20 +0800, Peter Wemm wrote: >I don't call this "fixing typos", as far as I can tell, >most of these changes have broken the correct usage. The changes are correct. >eg: here, we are talking about the device's softc: >- * return the pointer to it's softc structure >+ * return the pointer to its softc structure An apostrophe is used to indicate the possessive case (as in Peter's computer) except in the special case of the word "its." In this special case, it's (with the apostrophe) is a contraction of "it is" while its (without the apostrophe) is the possessive adjective. The committer is correct. Consult a dictionary or manual of style. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message