GNU bug report logs - #23746
25.0.95; Doc fixes (grammar, typos, clarification)

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Message #26 received at 23746 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Ken Brown <kbrown <at> cornell.edu>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>, Stephen Berman <stephen.berman <at> gmx.net>
Cc: 23746 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: bug#23746: 25.0.95; Doc fixes (grammar, typos, clarification)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2016 15:40:03 -0400

On 6/12/2016 2:55 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: Stephen Berman <stephen.berman <at> gmx.net>
>> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>,  23746 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
>> Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2016 19:58:27 +0200
>>
>> On Sat, 11 Jun 2016 16:21:19 -0400 Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>>
>>> As a native English speaker, "your Lisp program may wish telling the
>>> process" sounds obviously incorrect (though I'm not sure how to
>>> explain why in terms of grammatical rules). Whereas, "your Lisp
>>> program may wish to tell the process" is correct.
>>
>> That's one argument for this change; another is the statistical one
>> based on the existing Emacs documentation:
>>
>> steve <at> rosalinde:/data/steve/git/emacs> grep -r " wish to " doc/ | wc -l
>> 196
>> steve <at> rosalinde:/data/steve/git/emacs> grep -r " wish [a-z]*ing " doc/
>> doc/lispref/processes.texi:may wish telling the process the dimensions
>>
>> Eli, does this persuade you to accept this change too?
>
> Sorry, no.  There's nothing wrong in the original wording in this
> case.

As a native speaker of English, I agree with Noam on this.  "may wish 
telling" sounds wrong.

Ken

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