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

[John Baldwin]

On Tuesday 13 September 2005 05:34 pm, Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
> "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).

Not in the English I know. :)

> But I'm now out-voted.  Try this:
>
>     The MBR installed by FreeBSD's installer or boot0cfg(8) is ...
>
> which is better anyway.

Yes, that does work better.

-- 
John Baldwin <jhb at FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve"  =  http://www.FreeBSD.org