Re: correct English usage
On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 05:29:56 -0500, Indulekha wrote:
> In linux.debian.user, you wrote:
>> On Mon, 2 Apr 2012, Paul E Condon wrote:
>>
>>>> As far as I know, Squeeze is posterior to Lenny, and the
>>>> recommended
>>> ^^^^^^^^^
>>>
>>> This is the wrong word in English to describe the relation between
>>> Squeeze and Lenny. Maybe OK in some other European language, but not
>>> in English.
>>> . .
>>> For named releases of software and to express a relationship in time,
>>> posterior is the wrong word in English.
>>>
>>> Since the thread seemed mainly about correct English usage, I thought
>>> it would be helpful to point this out before the word got incorporated
>>> into Debian documentation.
>>
>> I agree that it is important to have a correct English usage, at
>> least in the documention, and that I am less qualified than you in
>> that field. Still, I am really puzzled by what I found in several
>> dictionnaries. I admit that most of the translation tools found on
>> Internet are not very reliable, but I thought that it was not the
>> case for dictionnaries. Here are some results I got for the
>> "posterior" entry:
>>
>> Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
>> 1 chiefly Anatomy further back in position . . . 2 Medicine . . .
>> 3 formal coming after in time or order; later.
(...)
>> Are all these distionnaries wrong?
>
> There is nothing wrong with your English or those definitions, they're
> just obscure and have fallen out of popular usage. I've frequently
> observed that people for whom English is a second language are more
> literate that the average American.
+5
But this also happens in any language mainly because non-native speakers
are doing what native-speakers usually don't: study and learn the proper
usage of their own language :-)
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
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