Re: debian-faq: Patch2 to improve wording or meaning, remove superfluous words, consistentency ...
Holger Wansing wrote:
>>> + <item>The Linux FAQ, by <url name="Ian Jackson" id="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ijackson/";>,
>> ^
>> I'm not sure about the item-initial capitalisation here - if we're
>> treating "The Linux FAQ" as a title, shouldn't it be in quotes or
>> something?
>
> I don't see the globally strategy in this document, to place titles inside
> of quotes.
> So changing to such strategy would require most probably many changes...
What I was really trying to say is that I don't think it *is* a title.
"The Linux FAQ" is more like a plain description; if this FAQ has a
title, it's "Linux FAQ", as in the URL of its current incarnation:
http://www.tldp.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/
And if TLDP wasn't willing to include articles in titles where
appropriate, it would be called LDP! So I'd suggest:
<item>the Linux FAQ, by <url name="Ian Jackson" id="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ijackson/";>,
or indeed:
<item>the original Linux FAQ, by <url name="Ian Jackson" id="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ijackson/";>,
>>> <item><em>sarge</em> was the sergeant of the Green Plastic Army Men,
>>> <item><em>etch</em> was the toy blackboard (Etch-a-Sketch),
>>
>> (Do people think of etch-a-sketches as blackboards? For a start,
>> isn't it more of a whiteboard?)
>
> I personally have no preference here (german speaker).
> What would you suggest?
People trying to describe what an Etch-a-Sketch is usually seem to
call it something like a "magic art pad". Maybe it doesn't matter as
long as we've got the actual brandname in there, but I would suggest:
<item><em>etch</em> was the toy whiteboard (Etch-a-Sketch),
>>> + <item><em>squeeze</em> was the three-eyed aliens,
>>
>> You could I suppose say that "Squeeze" *referred to* the aliens, but I
>> think the simplest approach is to keep "the name for/of" in this one
>> case.
>>
>> (Actually I'm not sure the name "Squeeze" was ever mentioned in the
>> original movie, though it might be in the merchandising or the
>> screenplay or something. And technically the names used in Toy Story
>> all obeyed the standard capitalisation rules of English orthography!)
>
> More than that: what would you propose (since someone told me, Squeeze
> could be seen as more than one person [three-eyed] ):
>
> <item><em>squeeze</em> was the name of the three-eyed alien
> <item><em>squeeze</em> was the name of the three-eyed aliens
>
> I personally would use alien
We only ever meet them in groups, but they're instances of the same
toy, so if any of them are named Squeeze they all are (just as both
the spaceman toys in TS2 are Buzz Lightyear). That's a weird enough
situation to make it worth talking in terms of the (one) name of the
(many) aliens:
<item><em>squeeze</em> was the name of the three-eyed aliens,
(Of course they're *toy* three-eyed aliens, but we don't need to say
that every single time!)
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
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