From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Oct 18 23:15:39 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5012716A4CE; Mon, 18 Oct 2004 23:15:39 +0000 (GMT) Received: from basement.kutulu.org (211.215.33.65.cfl.rr.com [65.33.215.211]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E9ED543D3F; Mon, 18 Oct 2004 23:15:38 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kutulu@kutulu.org) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (platypus.jungle [192.168.69.2]) by basement.kutulu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 78D933D; Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:15:32 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <41744EA1.90808@kutulu.org> Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:15:45 -0400 From: Mike Edenfield Organization: KutuluWare Software Services User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (Windows/20040913) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Harti Brandt References: <1097916792.1810.4.camel@kaiser.sig11.org> <200410161208.32381.dsyphers@u.washington.edu> <20041018090607.C11579@beagle.kn.op.dlr.de> In-Reply-To: <20041018090607.C11579@beagle.kn.op.dlr.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: David Syphers cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org cc: rionda@gufi.org Subject: Re: UPDATING readability X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 23:15:39 -0000 Harti Brandt wrote: > On Sat, 16 Oct 2004, David Syphers wrote: > > DS>On Saturday 16 October 2004 01:53 am, Matteo Riondato wrote: > DS>> Could we change an entry from: > DS>> > DS>> 20041007: > DS>> One of the syscalls the 1:1 threading library libthr uses has > DS>> changed, thus breaking ABI compatibility. Make sure you rebuild > DS>> this library with the kernel. > DS>> > DS>> to: > DS>> > DS>> 20041007: > DS>> One of the syscalls used by the 1:1 threading library libthr > DS>> has changed, thus breaking ABI compatibility. Make sure you rebuild > DS>> this library with the kernel. > DS>> > DS>> I think this will improve the readability and the comprension of the > DS>> entry by the non-native english speakers. > DS> > DS>I hate to be pedantic, but the original entry is preferable. In English it is > DS>correct to avoid the passive voice when possible (though not nearly to the > DS>extent that, say, French does). The active voice is quite appropriate here, > DS>where the subject is clearly defined. Is there a particular reason why > DS>non-native speakers would prefer the passive voice? > > The verbs are coming very late in the sentence. That's not a problem for > german speakers :-) but from experience I know that speakers from > languages where the verb must come near the beginning of the sentence have > a problem with this. The omission of the 'that' makes that even harder, > because you can't parse the sentence into grammatical units until you see > the 'uses' at the end of the line. That forces you to roll back and > re-parse. Would it be appropriate to flip the order of the sentances around? This would avoiding having two distinct noun-phrases in the first sentance, which is where I think the verb confusion is coming in: 20041007: The 1:1 threading library, libthr, must be rebuilt when building a kernel. One of the syscalls it uses has changed, thus breaking ABI compatibility. -- -- Mike Still using IE? Get Firefox! http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=6492&t=1