Re: How much is lintian an expert in english language ?

["Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net>]

Hi,

Russ Allbery wrote:
> That intransitive form of allow is almost always used
> in combination with the preposition "for".

But why then isn't the lintian check called
"allows to allows for" or "allow is not the right word here" ?

I get the suspicion that "allows to" is a germanism stemming
from "erlaubt es". This means "is a way to enable something".
In this theory, "allows one to" would be an english allergic
reaction on poorly translated german which then translates
back to really substandard german.
("erlaubt es einem" ... shudder.)

I guess that my correction of man cdrskin kills a few
correct usages of "allow", too:
  http://libburnia-project.org/changeset/5474

I got new instructions about cme, copyright files, and
repository URL now. So the upstream work to improve all
docs will have to wait a while.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas