Re: OT: Suggestion for next Debian release

[Tom Cook <tom.cook@adelaide.edu.au>]

Wendell Cochran wrote:
> 
> Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 03:52:42 +0100
> Carel Fellinger <cfelling@iae.nl> :
> 
> > > > > and here is really no interest in ridiculing anyone and less someone who would formulate constructively his criticism and suggestions ...
> 
> >> i really really don't want you to construe this as any kind of xenophobia,
> >> but this phrase above just doesn't work in english. i have no idea what you
> >> meant to convey by this.
> 
> > I admit, I'm no english man, but the sentence you fail to parse seem
> > clear as can be to my foreign eyes:)  Or were you just kidding?
> 
> > To me it says, that we on this list have no interest in ridiculing
> > anyone, and especially not someone that formulates his criticism and
> > suggestions in a constructive way.
> 
> As an editor I spend my life trying to understand what a writer is
> trying to say.  (That includes writers whose first language is not
> English.)
> 
> Despite decades of practice, the lines marked >>>> defeated me.  They
> still
> do.

I fear that I am forced to concur.  As a native English speaker (NOT
American speaker ;-) I can see the sense of the translation, but when
reading the original have no clue what it is about.  The phrase 'and
here is...' can not be given the object 'nothing,' nor can it be given
the object 'no interest'.  Although certain idioms include such
phraseology as 'and here isn't the Prime Minister of England,' such
usage is not correct and is ambiguous and confusing.  The correct
phrasing of this clause is '...and there is no interest here...'
although the 'and' is purely there because it was in the original.  I
don't think it is legal to begin a paragraph with 'and.'  The use of the
future tense indefinite 'and would formulate' is also somewhat skewed
from the probable intention of the phrase; it implies that we are
talking about someone who would even consider doing so, which I don't
think is the intent of the writer.  The position of 'constructively,'
although avoiding the split infinitive of 'to constructively formulate,'
is nonetheless somewhat awkward, and probably breaks some rule
somewhere.  It fits the rhythm of the language far more pleasingly to
move this word to the end of the sentence.  So, to sum up, a correct
phrasing might be:

[You should be more optimistic.]  There is no interest here in
ridiculing anyone, even less someone who formulates his criticisms and
suggestions constructively.

Here endeth the lesson. ;-)

Tom