Subject: Re: bug#11862: [PATCH 9/9] doc/lispref/intro.texi: Use passive voice

From: Stephen Berman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2012 21:09:12 +0200

On Thu, 5 Jul 2012 17:14:15 +0000 Michael Witten <[email-masked]> wrote:

> On Thu, 05 Jul 2012 19:37:55 +0300, Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> it starts at 1, is reset to 1 by @kbd{make bootstrap}, and each build
>> of Emacs increments that number.
>
> In all clauses but the last, `it' (that is, the last number) is the subject.
> Moroever, the middle clause is already in the passive voice. So, for the sake of
> consistency, why not continue with both the subject `it' and that passive voice:
>
>   it starts at 1, is reset to 1 by @kbd{make bootstrap}, and is incremented each
>   time Emacs is built.
>
> Perhaps this is a better order:
>
>   it starts at 1, is incremented each time Emacs is built, and is reset to 1 by
>   @kbd{make bootstrap}.
>
> Of course, as Glenn Morris points out, the way in which `it' is reset is not of
> great importance. So, how about:
>
>   it starts at 1, is incremented each time Emacs is built, and can be reset by
>   something like @kbd{make clean} or @kbd{make bootstrap}.

Here's another attempt to satisfy the no passive preference:

    The last number in this string is not part of the Emacs release
    version number, but is a counter representing the build number; each
    time you rebuild Emacs, the last number increases by one (but
    building with @kbd{make clean} or @kbd{make bootstrap} resets it to
    1).

Steve Berman