Pfannenstein Erik <debianignatz@gmx.de> writes: >> <p> >> Driverless printing and scanning are possible without the need for vendor >> specific (often non-free) drivers. Most modern printers are able to use >> driverless printing implemented via CUPS and cup-filters, bullseye brings >> forward a new package, ipp-usb, which uses vendor neutral IPP-over-USB >> allowing a USB device to be treated as a network device. > > First of all, this sentence is suspciously long, maybe there was supposed to be > a period after "cup-filters" (cups-filters?). > Indeed "cups-filters, bullseye" is a grammatical infelicity known as a "comma splice", but a full stop is not necessarily the most clear and natural way to solve it. When writing compactly, relationships between statements may suffer, and using a semicolon means "these things are related, eg: elements in a sequence" whereas a full stop asserts "these things are unrelated, but not so much so that a paragraph break is required". That said, I think a comma and coordinating conjunction would result in "bullseye…network device" having too many subclauses for the expectations of modern technical writing; this extra subclause also increases reading difficulty...but I digress, because that's a question of style. Honestly, it baffles me why semicolons aren't used more in our community, because they let one write declaratively in a grammatically correct way, eg: This is the first clause with the most important statement; the second clause is supporting evidence for the first clause; add a little bit more context--if necessary. Then write a strong conclusion sentence like this (ok, this is a colon): Semicolons allow one to write compactly by avoiding the extra words that fancy coordinating conjunctions entail, and the conclusion sentence ties things together for the reader. I also agree that "ipp-usb, which uses vendor neutral…as a network device" is fundamentally misleading, because as far as I can tell, this package is only useful for newer printers that support the IPP-over-USB standard. I hope this email is fun to read and well received, because my feeling is that grammar critiques are like BOFH comments. In truth, I wish for everyone to be able to write using the semantics they're comfortable with, with correct grammar, thus feeling empowered! Thus the case for the semicolon as a separator for grammatically independent clauses. Be true to yourself; use semicolons ;-) Cheers, Nicholas
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