Re: [HACKERS] "May", "can", "might"

Standard English uses "may", "can", and "might" in different ways:

may - permission, "You may borrow my rake."

can - ability, "I can lift that log."

might - possibility, "It might rain today."

Unfortunately, in conversational English, their use is often mixed, as
in, "You may use this variable to do X", when in fact, "can" is a better
choice. Similarly, "It may crash" is better stated, "It might crash".

I would like to clean up our documentation to consistently use these
words. Objections?

(Who says were obsessive?) :-)

--
Bruce Momjian bruce(at)momjian(dot)us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

On 1/31/07, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
> Standard English uses "may", "can", and "might" in different ways:
>
> may - permission, "You may borrow my rake."
>
> can - ability, "I can lift that log."
>
> might - possibility, "It might rain today."
>
> Unfortunately, in conversational English, their use is often mixed, as
> in, "You may use this variable to do X", when in fact, "can" is a better
> choice. Similarly, "It may crash" is better stated, "It might crash".
>
> I would like to clean up our documentation to consistently use these
> words. Objections?
My full support. :} I like clarity, specially on such important things
as communication!

> (Who says were obsessive?) :-)

"Bruce Momjian" <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:

> (Who says were obsessive?) :-)

I may not fall into your clever trap...

--
Gregory Stark
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

Andrej Ricnik-Bay wrote:
> On 1/31/07, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
> > Standard English uses "may", "can", and "might" in different ways:
> >
> > may - permission, "You may borrow my rake."
> >
> > can - ability, "I can lift that log."
> >
> > might - possibility, "It might rain today."
> >
> > Unfortunately, in conversational English, their use is often mixed, as
> > in, "You may use this variable to do X", when in fact, "can" is a better
> > choice. Similarly, "It may crash" is better stated, "It might crash".
> >
> > I would like to clean up our documentation to consistently use these
> > words. Objections?
> My full support. :} I like clarity, specially on such important things
> as communication!
>
>
> > (Who says were obsessive?) :-)

Ah, someone already got me with were -> we're. "Who says we're
obsessive?" Perfect!

--
Bruce Momjian bruce(at)momjian(dot)us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

On 1/30/07, Gregory Stark <stark(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> wrote:
>
> "Bruce Momjian" <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
>
> > (Who says were obsessive?) :-)
>
> I may not fall into your clever trap...

But you certainly can!

<cymbal_crash/>

(sorry...)

>
> --
> Gregory Stark
> EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com
>
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--
Mike Rylander
mrylander(at)gmail(dot)com
GPLS -- PINES Development
Database Developer
http://open-ils.org

Bruce Momjian a écrit :
> Standard English uses "may", "can", and "might" in different ways:
>
> may - permission, "You may borrow my rake."
>
> can - ability, "I can lift that log."
>
> might - possibility, "It might rain today."
>
> Unfortunately, in conversational English, their use is often mixed, as
> in, "You may use this variable to do X", when in fact, "can" is a better
> choice. Similarly, "It may crash" is better stated, "It might crash".
>
> I would like to clean up our documentation to consistently use these
> words. Objections?
>

No objections at all... it can only ease translations.

> (Who says were obsessive?) :-)
>

:)

--
Guillaume.
<!-- http://abs.traduc.org/
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http://docs.postgresqlfr.org/ -->

On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 12:39:26PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> I would like to clean up our documentation to consistently use these
> words. Objections?

None here, but if you're going to go to the trouble, you might want
to have a look at how others have faced this problem too.

In my line of work, we've taken to adopting the RFC 2119 words for
cases where we want to be super-clear and unambiguous. I don't think
those formulations would be much use for user manuals, but it's nice
to see that another group of people who work by converging on
consensus can still do that by (for example) agreeing that "MAY" and
"may" are not the same word.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca
The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.
--George Orwell