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Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft finesFree Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft finesPosted Jul 13, 2006 9:40 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304)Parent article: Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Nice stuff, but a suggestion to the FSFE: run this sort of thing past a couple of native English speakers before publication. For example, this brought my inner parser to a screeching halt: "If we are to believe Microsofts numbers, it appears that 120.000 person days are not enough to document its own software. This is a task that good software developers do during the development of software, and a hallmark of bad engineering,"This says either that writing documentation is a hallmark of bad engineering or that failing to document your own software is a task that good developers do. (There's also a missing apostrophe, but native English speakers are now worse at apostrophisation than Europeans are, so I'll not harp on that ;) ) And there are typos: During the main hearing at the European Court of Justice toward the end of April, the president and founder of Samba Dr. Andrew Tridgell presented the work of the Samba Team work.Proofreading might not catch things like this (humans are notoriously good at missing such things), but it certainly might push up the probability of zapping them. Oh, and one last pick: He concludes: "When will society refuse to legitimise such business practices by buying from companies that exhibit such behaviour?"You probably meant 'cease to legitimise', and even then the sentence is clumsy: it's ambiguous as to whether buyigng from companies constitutes refusal or not, and my first parse was that it would (oops, wrong).
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Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 13, 2006 11:58 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] > You probably meant 'cease to legitimise', and even then the sentence is I guess you meant "buying" ;-p Just kidding. Thanks for pointing out the mistakes, I'll pass them on. The PR process usually catches these things, but sometimes people are very busy, and sometimes the native English speakers are stuck in meetings etc. while deadlines are approaching.
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 15, 2006 10:13 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] There is no grammar flame that does not have a grammatical error.
Thus is the balance kept. :)
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 13, 2006 16:04 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] (There's also a missing apostrophe, but native English speakers are now worse at apostrophisation than Europeans are, so I'll not harp on that ;)What apostrophe? If you are referring to the one in "document its own software", no, it does not have an apostrophe. You are right that English speakers are bad at apostrophisation: after all, Greve is not English and he wrote it right :D
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 13, 2006 16:47 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] He probably meant the one missing from "Microsofts numbers".
Missing apostrophe mystery solved Posted Jul 13, 2006 17:03 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Aww, you are right, sorry.
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 14, 2006 8:25 UTC (Fri) by MortFurd (guest, #9389) [Link] Don't bet on Europeans being any better with apostrophes.
I saw this this morning at a gas station that also sells snacks: Donut's (the only word on the sign, obviously meant to be the plural of Donut.)
This isn't an isolated example, either. It is very common to see this kind of thing. Note also: It not proper German to make the possesive form of a word with "apostrophe S."
Check out "Fools's Apostrophe" and some of the links there:
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 15, 2006 10:17 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] I've seen one piece of tourist-directed English shopfront signage in the Alsace area which possessivised English by adding `es'. For a moment I hoped they were putting up signs in early Middle English, but alas no. It wouldn't have been correct German in that instance either. :)
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