On Wed, Sep 01, 2004 at 12:10:22AM +1000, Paul Hampson wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 27, 2004 at 09:29:14PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > * Kevin B. McCarty:
>
> > > Recall that "it's" is a contraction for "it is" or "it has", and any other
> > > use (e.g. as a possessive) is not grammatically correct English.
> > > Hypothetical examples:
>
> > > - XMMS is cool. It's one of the best ... [correct, "It is"]
> > > - XMMS is cool. It's been rated highly ... [correct, "It has"]
> > > - XMMS is cool. It's features include ... [wrong]
> > > - XMMS is cool. Its features include ... [correct, possessive]
>
> > > Using "it's" and "its" correctly is in your best interest, since incorrect
> > > usage may cause someone browsing the package descriptions to have a bad
> > > first impression of that package.
>
> > If this is really important, lintian could enforce a style guide that
> > prohibts "it's" altogether, always requiring the spelled-out versions.
> > (While we are at it, "e.g." and "i.e." are good candidates for a ban,
> > too. 8-)
>
> In that direction, we could (as I nearly suggested last week) ban all
> personal pronouns to prevent displaying any gender bias, while not
> putting the weight of Debian's collective English grammar behind any
^^^^^^^^^^
Debian is a collective? Seven of nine would be proud! Then again, if
Debian becomes the 'universal' operating system, 'assimilation' would
be one way to ensure that!
-Kev
> particular gender-neutral personal singular pronoun.
--
(__)
(oo)
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...."Have you mooed today?"...
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