1 |
Tom Wijsman posted on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:38:45 +0200 as excerpted: |
2 |
|
3 |
>> I don't recall a policy mandating that descriptions can't end with '.'. |
4 |
>> I asked our QA lead about it and was told that he didn't recall that we |
5 |
>> have an official policy about it either. Also, the devmanual never |
6 |
>> mentions any such requirement. |
7 |
> |
8 |
> It has been a common belief to drop '.' among some from what I've seen. |
9 |
|
10 |
[Observational/skippable.] |
11 |
|
12 |
FWIW, I've been watching this debate with some amusement, as I follow |
13 |
Language Log, which has a continuing serious covering the generational/ |
14 |
regional differences in period/full-stop interpretation. |
15 |
|
16 |
The first in the series and my favorite, due to the cartoon illustrating |
17 |
the issue (Nov. 2012): |
18 |
|
19 |
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4304 |
20 |
|
21 |
Two newer installations of the series (Nov 2013 and Aug 1, 2014, |
22 |
respectively): |
23 |
|
24 |
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8667 |
25 |
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13723 |
26 |
|
27 |
|
28 |
It can be a big deal for some. Quoting from the first comment on the |
29 |
first article (and noting that what we call a "period" US-English is a |
30 |
"full stop" in UK-English): |
31 |
|
32 |
Obviously, a period is a full stop, but, in short text messages, I feel |
33 |
like it almost SAYS full stop, with all the attendant emphasis of that |
34 |
phrase. "Best movie ever" is one thing, but "Best. Movie. Ever." is quite |
35 |
another. |
36 |
|
37 |
|
38 |
Back to gentoo and the current "Much ado about nothing". Someone's |
39 |
irritated with the periods/full-stops following short descriptions, |
40 |
because to him it's disruptive, almost as if an exclamation point (which |
41 |
I /would/ find disruptive) was used, such that for him a repoman check is |
42 |
warranted. |
43 |
|
44 |
But to many others, it's trivial, certainly nothing worth bothering with |
45 |
a repoman check and hundreds of individual fixes with concurrent changelog |
46 |
entries. |
47 |
|
48 |
-- |
49 |
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
50 |
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
51 |
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |