Re: Ariane5 FAQ

[aek@vib.usr.pu.ru (Alexander Kopilovitch)]

Richard Riehle wrote:

>Hyman Rosen wrote:
>
> > Bobby D. Bryant wrote:
> > > Which brings us directly back to Alexandre's "there were no reasons to
> > > expect that it should work for this new rocket", which you objected to so
> > > strenuously at the start of this tread.
> >
> > No, because there is a great deal of difference between the statements
> >      "there were no reasons to expect that this would work"
>
>I agree with Hyman on this one.  The phrasing is awkward

Well, the prhasing may be somehow awkward, I know well that my English is far
from perfect.

> and fails
> to convey what I suspect is the original intent of the writer.

As far as I can see from this thread, all (yes, all, without exceptions)
readers that responded to that phrase understood my intent correctly.

>  There are
>no reasons why someone reading it would expect it to be correct.

Perhaps. But nevertheless the actual testing confirmed that it was understood
-- all responses were in proper range.

> A slightly modified phrasing would eliminate the Usenet overflow that
>seems to have occurred.

But why didn't you propose a modification?

>   More careful design of the FAQ, though it
>works perfectly well for the Ada-enthusiast audience for which it
>was intended,  seems to raise an exception when read by others who
>parse such statements differently, and whose intellectual trajectory
>is a bit less vertical.

Well, I believe in your good intentions, but I don't see you concrete
propositions.

I know that my writing may need language corrections, and that it surely
does not satisfy high standards of political correctness. For drawbacks of
the first kind I'll be happy to make amendments - just point me at my wrongs
and propose appropriate modifications. As for political correctness... well,
I have nothing against it, but only if it does not obscure essential things.



Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia