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Subject: Re: [virtio-dev] Re: [virtio] [PATCH] intro: add advice on transition from legacy interfaces
On Thu, 2015-07-02 at 15:04 +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote: > > On 02/07/2015 13:17, James Bottomley wrote: > >> > I prefer Michael's version for this sentence. English strongly prefers > >> > simpler sentences, or so I was explained by native speakers. This is > >> > unlike Italian, and my high school experience dealing with Kant suggests > >> > that German is similar. :) > > That's not true at all ... English prose strongly prefers complex > > sentences with subclauses to get nuanced descriptions; the heyday of > > this was the 18-19 century: Dickens and Jane Austen have sentences that > > go on for pages. That said, this is a specification, not a novel, so > > specs like clarity and simplicity (in any language). > > I wish this was the case for the few Italian technical documents I've > had the pleasure to read. :) I was expounding the ideal not the sad reality ... > > I'd still say > > > > In this case the reader might like to focus on sections tagged > > "Legacy Interface" in the section title which highlight the > > changes made since these earlier drafts. > > > > Because it's a single thought unit. Sentence structure should follow > > the layout of the ideas. > > I think this last paragraph is interesting. You didn't write "Because > it's a single thought unit, and sentence structure should follow the > layout of the ideas". Actually those are two separate thought units. I could make the second sentence a subclause of the first if I wanted to because it could be made an expansion of the previous though unit; however, it also stands on its own as a statement, hence the new sentence (but either way is correct). The comma before the conjunction, by the way, is illegal in English but acceptable in American. > But after all this is bikeshedding, and we all know... It should be red. James > Paolo > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: virtio-dev-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org > For additional commands, e-mail: virtio-dev-help@lists.oasis-open.org >
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