[darcs-users] darcs patch: Edit Front Page (and 9 more)

Trent W. Buck trentbuck at gmail.com
Fri Apr 17 08:16:44 UTC 2009


Daniel Carrera <dcarrera at gmail.com> writes:

> Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>> Trent W. Buck writes:
>>
>>  > When writing, I would put "darcs'", not "darcs's".
>>  >  > As the Darcs documentation manager, I decree that either are
>>  > acceptable.
>>
>> IMO that's the worst possible outcome.  If you want to be non-Fascist
>> about it, it's reasonable to say that
>>
>>     the preferred form is "Darcs'"
>
> In practise I will always try to rephrase the sentence to avoid the
> issue entirely. These "little" orthography or grammar issues can be
> irritating or at least distracting to a reader doesn't agree with the
> style adopted. And that always creates a barrier between the reader
> and the content. Another example is "they" vs "he" vs "he/she". Some
> people are appalled at seeing "they" used as a third person singular
> pronoun. Others are equally appalled at "he/she" or "(s)he", etc. A
> good technical writer will try to avoid these issues, not because of
> adherence to correct grammar, but because irritating the reader is
> less effective.

+1, precisely.  The "preferred" solution is to avoid the issue by
rephrasing.



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