On Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 04:40:10PM -0700, Joey Hess wrote: > BTW, the paragraph in policy about DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS is poorly worded > and has some grammatical problems. I've marked the parts that got on my nerves. [...] > This allows to generate a build tree with debugging information. If > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > the environment variable `DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS' contains the string > `nostrip', do not strip the files at installation time. This allows > ^^^^^^^^^^^ > to generate a package with debugging information included. The > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > following makefile snippet is only an example how to test for either > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > I think that should be "This allows <something>". And "example how to test" is > missing an "of". I agree; this is rotten grammar. Another popular, but utterly wrong, construct that is annoying is following "needs" with a verb form other than the infinitive or present perfect. E.g. "This needs doing." is correct (if perhaps a bit colloquial). "This needs to be done." is also correct. "This needs done." is NOT correct. This type grammar allows to not comprehend English correctly. People needs learned do better. -- G. Branden Robinson | The first thing the communists do when Debian GNU/Linux | they take over a country is to outlaw branden@debian.org | cockfighting. http://www.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Oklahoma State Senator John Monks
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