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bug#6877: Documentation: "till" vs "until" in docstrings
From: |
MON KEY |
Subject: |
bug#6877: Documentation: "till" vs "until" in docstrings |
Date: |
Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:10:02 -0400 |
A "till" is:
up to the time of <- prepositive
before <- conjunctive
glacier dirt <- noun
a money box <- noun
the act of ploughing soil <- verb
an "until" is:
up to the time of <- prepositive
before <- conjunctive
While it is considered reasonable by many[1] to substitute "till" for
"until" I don't see this as something to promote in the docs esp.
when there is a negligible economy in using of "till" instead of "until":
(length "till") ;=> 4
(length "until") ;=> 5
And where the latter has presents little interpretational ambiguity
the former does esp. vis a vis putative Emacs intl8n/translation
efforts.
Likewise, practitioners of many programming languages often have an
immediate usage mnemonic for "until".[2]
Note, following list of files/symbols/strings identify visible
occurrences (i.e not inside a comment) where " till " appears in the
Emacs sources and would be better suited wit the use of until:
--
src/textprop.c
`next-char-property-change'
"This scans characters forward in the current buffer from POSITION till"
`previous-char-property-change'
"Scans characters backward in the current buffer from POSITION till it"
`next-single-char-property-change'
"Scans characters forward from POSITION till it finds"
`previous-single-char-property-change'
"Scans characters backward from POSITION till it finds"
`next-property-change'
"Scans characters forward from POSITION in OBJECT till it finds"
`next-single-property-change'
"Scans characters forward from POSITION till it finds"
`previous-property-change'
"Scans characters backwards from POSITION in OBJECT till it finds"
`previous-single-property-change'
"Scans characters backward from POSITION till it finds"
--
doc/lispref/text.texi
"string or buffer @var{object} till it finds a change in some text"
--
lisp/subr.el
"Execute BODY, but don't call the after-change functions till the end."
--
lisp/doc-view.el
`doc-view-open-text'
(message "DocView: please wait till conversion finished.")
`doc-view-search'
(message "DocView: please wait till conversion finished.")
--
lisp/midnight.el
`midnight-next'
"Return the number of seconds till the next midnight."
--
lisp/vc/vc-rcs.el
`vc-release-greater-or-equal'
"lower \(5.6.7 is earlier than 5.6.7.1\). Comparison runs till the end"
--
calendar/appt.el
`appt-mode-string'
"The actual string includes the amount of time till the appointment."
--
progmodes/which-func.el
`which-func-non-auto-modes'
"List of major modes where Which Function mode is inactive till Imenu is used."
--
progmodes/fortran.el
`fortran-column-ruler'
"Insert a column ruler momentarily above current line, till next keystroke."
--
cedet/ede/files.el
`semantic-debug-go'
"Continue parsing till finish or breakpoint."
--
cedet/semantic/util.el
`semantic-recursive-find-nonterminal-by-name'
"Start search with BUFFER. Recurse through all dependencies till found."
--
admin/emacs-pretesters
"user-visible bugs, don't wait till pretest time. Instead, send them"
"pretest time, we will have to defer them till later, and that might"
admin/notes/copyright
"files, which did not appear till Athena support was added in Lucid"
" - had no copyright notice till Feb 2007. ChangeLog.3 suggests it was"
" till Feb 2007, when FSF copyright was added. Matt Norwood advised:"
---
[1] From a usage note @ dictionary.com:
,----
|
| "Till" and "until" are both old in the language and are
| interchangeable as both prepositions and conjunctions:
|
| "It rained till (or until) nearly midnight."
|
| "The savannah remained brown and lifeless until (or till) the rains
| began."
|
| Till is not a shortened form of until and is not spelled "'till".
|
| "'Til" is usually considered a spelling error, though widely used in
| advertising:
|
| "Open 'til ten."
|
`----
For example Emacs lisp has these "*-until-*' symbols:
`run-hook-with-args-until-failure' `run-hook-with-args-until-success'
`timer-until'
Moreover other languages have untils to as evidenced with:
- the until keyword in Common Lisp's `loop' macro,
- the Perl until operator see `perl-font-lock-keywords-2'
- Delphi Pascals until see `delphi-keywords'
- Pascal is littered with "until" references See pascal-mode's
`pascal-start-keywords'
- Ada 95 has them too, see `ada-95-string-keywords'
- Icon has it in `icon-resword-alist' and `icon-font-lock-keywords-2'
- IDL has it in `idlwave-idl-keywords'
- MetaFont/MetaPost has one in `meta-common-primitives-list'
- Modula-2 has until in `m3-font-lock-keywords-2'
- Octave - you betcha - see `octave-end-keywords'
- Ruby too try `ruby-block-beg-keywords'
- sh has some as well see `sh-leading-keywords', `sh-indent-for-do', etc.
- Simula 87 - yep try `simula-font-lock-keywords-2'
- SQL - why not try the Linter, Oracle, and Postgres keywords
- Verilog - but of course check out `verilog-keywords'
- VHDL won't be left out its in `vhdl-93-keywords'
--
/s_P\
- bug#6877: Documentation: "till" vs "until" in docstrings,
MON KEY <=