Re: [boost] [Range] Misc comments

From: Phil Endecott (spam_from_boost_dev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-01-12 12:31:58

Thorsten Ottosen wrote:
> brass goowy skrev:
>> utility_class.html says, "Recall that many default 
>> constructed iterators are singular..."
>>  
>> I didn't find other uses of the word singular in the 
>> documentation and am not sure what you mean. Are you 
>> saying they are not meant to be range endpoints?

I was also unfamiliar with that term; a note would be useful.

>> In that last paragraph I quoted, there are two places 
>> where it says, "an Forward." I think those should be 
>> "a Forward." 

[not sure which bit your question is about]
> Do other native native English speakers agree?

Yes.

By chance, I just saw this in the changelog for the linux man pages:

Justin Pryzby / mtk
Fix incorrect usage of "a" and "an" before following vowel /
consonant, by reviewing the output of the following scripts:

for a in $(wc */*.? | awk '$1 > 10 {print $4}' | gv total); do
     echo $a
     MANWIDTH=4000 man -l $a 2>/dev/null |
         egrep '(^| )an [^aeiou][a-z]'
done | less

for a in $(wc */*.? | awk '$1 > 10 {print $4}' | gv total); do
     echo $a
     MANWIDTH=4000 man -l $a 2>/dev/null | \
         egrep '(^| )a [aeiou][a-z]'
done| less

>> And swapping "is" and "however" in the 
>> last sentence would make it easier to read.

> Do other native native English speakers agree?

I would put "however" right at the start of the sentence.  But that's 
not considered good style by some.

Given the two options I would choose "The biggest difference, however, 
is that a ...".

Phil.