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Re: Comment on introduction pages


From: Stefano Lattarini
Subject: Re: Comment on introduction pages
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2010 02:43:03 +0200
User-agent: KMail/1.12.1 (Linux/2.6.30-2-686; KDE/4.3.4; i686; ; )

Hello automakers.

For a better understanding of this answer, please refer to the thread
<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-autoconf/2010-06/msg00004.html>
on the bug-autoconf mailing list.  Thanks.

At Friday 04 June 2010, Christina Gratorp 
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I have a suggestion that would make a difference when visiting your
> otherwise eminent website:
> http://sources.redhat.com/automake/automake.html#Introduction. The
>  sentence "The developer expresses the recipe to build *his*
>  package in a Makefile" must be wrong since I'm a woman and a user
>  and have packages I want to build and those packages are mine, i.e
>  *hers* would be correct in this case. (I know that his could be
>  considered neutral but really, it doesn't feel that way.)
> 
> Suggestion: change the sentence to "The developer expresses the
> recipe to build *his/hers* package in a Makefile"
FWIW: this seem unnecessary convoluted to me, but it's not a big deal 
after all (even if it makes me cringe, sorta); on the other hand...
>  or "The developer expresses the recipe to build *the* package in a
>  Makefile"
... changing to "the" loses the notion of ownership; and as there is 
more than one package with mention in the sentence (which package: the
developer's, or Automake?), I feel that losing the possessive pronoun
would be a step backwards -- and using "the developer's" feels 
redundant.
   [quoted from observations by Eric Blake, with whom I agree]
>  or  "The developer expresses the recipe to build *their* package
>  in a Makefile"
.. and please, *please*, at least don't use this last formulation,
as it might be really confusing (and might seem downright uncorrect, 
even if technically it's not) for non-native speakers not accustomed 
with this kind of gender-neutral pronouns (e.g., me).

To summarize: I wouldn't change the formulation *at all*, but if you 
are willing to change it anyway, please choose the (inelegant but 
clearer) form "his/hers".

Regards,
    Stefano



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