Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Kent Fredric <kentnl@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Reverse use of Python/Ruby versions
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2017 21:49:16
Message-Id: 20170411094827.6acdccd3@katipo2.lan
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Reverse use of Python/Ruby versions by "William L. Thomson Jr."
1 On Mon, 10 Apr 2017 12:03:51 -0400
2 "William L. Thomson Jr." <wlt-ml@××××××.com> wrote:
3
4 > That is ALLOT of work to fiddle
5
6 Unrelated to thread and is not intended as a "I'm better because I grammar well" thing,
7 but this drives me nuts and I've bitten my tongue on it for months.
8
9 But you use that word that isn't a word in the context you mean, frequently.
10
11 You want *two* words, "a lot", which mean "a large volume of"
12
13 "allot" is a *verb*, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/allot#Verb
14
15 Which means "to proportion out"
16
17 By analogy, this makes as much sense as if you'd written:
18
19 "That is a distributing of work to fiddle"
20
21 Or
22
23 "That is an apportion of work to fiddle"
24
25 Which is nonsense.
26
27 I myself used to make this mistake, and now I just avoid the word
28 in entirety as a defensive strategy.
29
30 "I use that word a lot" -> "I use that word frequently"
31
32 "It is a lot of work" -> "It is substantial work"
33
34 "I have a lot of time" -> "I have significant time"
35
36 "I will allot you 5 units of rice" -> "I will apportion you 5 units of rice"
37
38 ( I try not to play grammar nazi, but when you make only one mistake that I notice,
39 I ignore it, but when you make the same single mistake over and over and over again,
40 on a daily basis, I feel somebody should point it out.
41
42 Please accept my apologies for having some flavour of mental disorder for being
43 triggered by this )