Re: Bug#582109: debian-policy: document triggers where appropriate
On Wed, 10 Apr 2013, Simon McVittie wrote:
> <hat class="native-en_GB-speaker">
> I've mostly seen whitespace used as a "mass noun", like water or
> sand: you can say "whitespace is ignored" or "a sequence of
> whitespace", but not "a whitespace" or "whitespaces", in the same
> way that it's correct to say "some sand", "a piece of sand" or "a
> cubic metre of sand", but not "a sand" or "sands".
Slight nitpick: you can (almost) always refer to collections of mass
nouns in a plural form. So whitespaces and sands are perfectly
reasonable to use, but then they refer to multiple separate
whitespace-containing areas, or multiple separate sand-containing
areas.
Don Armstrong
--
Only one creature could have duplicated the expressions on their
faces, and that would be a pigeon who has heard not only that Lord
Nelson has got down off his column but has also been seen buying a
12-bore repeater and a box of cartridges.
-- Terry Pratchet _Mort_
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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