cvs commit: doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/boot chapter.sgml

[Gary W. Swearingen]

"Kevin Oberman" <oberman at es.net> writes:

>> From: garys at opusnet.com (Gary W. Swearingen)
>> AFAIK, that is an permissible English abbreviation of this:
>> 
>>    The MBR installed by FreeBSD's installer and
>>    the MBR installed by boot0cfg(8) are ...
>> 
>>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^-------(implied)
>> 
>> The second "by" in my sentence is the clue that I've omitted the
>> second "the MBR installed" so as to not repeat it.

> Th 'by' is a preposition. The prepositional phrase does not impact the
> issue of the subject being singular or plural.
...
> The example you gave is not valid because it is only grammatically
> correct when there are two MBRs. One MBR - singular verb.

There should be two MBRs in the reader's grammar processor, if not in
the text; one of them is implied (by the second "by", regardless of
what other purpose it serves in the sentence).

But I'm now out-voted.  Try this:

    The MBR installed by FreeBSD's installer or boot0cfg(8) is ...

which is better anyway.