[Gllug] LinuxDoc / DocBook Documentation Writting

[Nix]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2006, John G. Walker stated:
> On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 01:45:01 +0100 Nix <nix at esperi.org.uk> wrote:
>> e.g. try feeding in the grossly incorrect sentence
>> 
>>   She's going to London and talk on global warming
> 
> This is perfectly correct colloquial English, where to "go and do
> something"  means to "go to do something". I bet you use the
> construction all the time in your everyday conversation.

Is it? It screams `wrong' to me, where `she's going to talk on global
warming' is fine. Even more obviously wrong to my ears:

  She's going to London and talk about global warming

Again, that's another argument against grammar checkers: they can't
take grammatical variation into account.

>> And if you have a really document to work on, let someone else

GAH! I need more sleep... that's not grammatically correct to anyone
unless `really' has suddenly become an adjective...

>> proofread it. Let *them* be your grammar checker. (That last sentence
>> would be flagged as grammatically incorrect by some idiot
>> prescriptivists and even more idiot grammar checkers: singular
>> `they', you see.)

... and they'd be right if they spotted the other stupid error. Ahem.
Do what I say, not what I do, and all that.

>> (I know there are language geeks on this list --- far more
>> knowledgeable language geeks than I: I expect they agree but I'd not
>> venture to assume that.)
> 
> I agree absolutely with the main thrust of your argument. But the
> grammatical correct construction her is "than me". English hasn't
> completely got rid of cases yet :)

I said `than am I' and then typo-erased the `am' :/

-- 
`In typical emacs fashion, it is both absurdly ornate and
 still not really what one wanted.' --- jdev
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