On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 05:11:29PM -0500, Joe Drew wrote: > On Thu, 2003-11-20 at 15:11, Steve Langasek wrote: > > On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 02:26:08PM -0500, Joe Drew wrote: > > > On Fri, 2003-11-14 at 17:35, Sebastien Bacher wrote: > > > > * Package name : verbiste > > > > Description : a french conjugation system > > > Drop the leading "a". > > Because of course, the space saved is very important given the length of > > the remaining description... > > And certainly more important than having a complete, grammatically > > correct English noun phrase. > It's never, ever been about the space saved. I don't know where you got > that idea. 1) This has been cited before by others as the reason for removing the articles. 2) It's the only remotely reasonable explanation, so I've been giving people the benefit of the doubt. > Quote from <[🔎] 1069214638.31545.21.camel@pisces.woot.net>, which I sent on > Tuesday, 18 Nov 2003: > | The short description should make sense read in the form "$PACKAGE > | is a[n] $SHORTDESC." > A further citation for my comments: > http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2001/debian-policy-200108/msg00009.html Policy doesn't get to trump English grammar. Splitting the article off from the rest of the noun phrase is awkward, and *decreases* the grammatical consistency of package descriptions: consider that for some descriptions, the proper article is the definite article, and that for others, no article at all would be appropriate. There are consequently a large number of package descriptions that could never fit the formula "$PACKAGE is a[n] $SHORTDESC.", so exerting effort to make other descriptions conform to such a flawed rule seems folly. The formula that *could* be universally applied to all short descriptions is "$PACKAGE (is|contains|provides) $SHORTDESC."; in this formula, it's clear that the articles, as part of the noun phrase, would be explicit in the short description when appropriate. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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