grammar

[John Baldwin]

On 30-May-2003 Matthew Hunt wrote:
> On Sat, May 31, 2003 at 08:06:45AM +1000, Sue Blake wrote:
> 
>> Tell me, how would you follow the following (hypothetical) instruction?
>> 
>>  In case you run out of memory, don't run all of the programs together.
>> 
>> Is it something to do as a precaution, or a response to take when
>> an unlikely situation occurs? I would read it as a precaution and
>> make a workplace rule that we must follow it.
> 
> Do you know the national origin of this documentation?  Was it generally
> satisfactory otherwise?  I'm wondering if it was written by a non-native
> speaker.

It feels that way.  That sentence read very odd.  Doesn't "feel" like
it's correct.  Maybe the contrast of "in case" which implies a chance
occurrence, and the present tense of "run".  I.e. it might sound better
as:

In case you have run out of memory, <blah>.

In which case I think it is a grammar error.

-- 

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