Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 11:10:02 -0800 (PST) From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) To: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: docs/36462: dev.handbook grammar nit "try and" Message-ID: <200203291910.g2TJA2j05806@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR docs/36462; it has been noted by GNATS. From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) To: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@freebsd.org> Cc: bug-followup@freebsd.org Subject: Re: docs/36462: dev.handbook grammar nit "try and" Date: 29 Mar 2002 11:03:58 -0800 Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@freebsd.org> writes: > Good catch. There are many places that use " try and" as you can see from the > following. Is "try and" an acceptable thing in English syntax, or should we go > through the docs and eliminate it? Like I said, it's a "nit". One hears it often and so also sees it in e-mail, but it's in the same category as "ain't" -- much frowned upon by the grammarians, and seldom seen in professionally-editted text. My American Heritage Dictionary is nearly 30 years old, but 79% of their "Usage Panel" found an example containing "to try and force compliance" to be "unacceptable". I'll not comment on whether you should "go through the docs". I just calls 'em as I sees 'em. But if you think that's a good thing to do, consider also cataloging (on www.freebsd.org, preferably) a lot of these commonly inserted nits for yearly sweeps, etc. You could leave it for those in-the-know, or ask there for people to send content to you directly or just put in PRs. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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