Re: [OT] Doc string grammar

kfogel@collab.net wrote:
> Julian Foad <julianfoad@btopenworld.com> writes:
>
>>I think from now on I will sit on the fence and say something like "We
>>write in the imperative or infinitive (syntactically identical)".
[...]
>
> Some people might interpret "infinitive" as including the "to", that is:
>
> imperative: "Translate TARGET according to KEYWORDS."
> infinitive: "To translate TARGET according to KEYWORDS."

Good point. Malcolm pointed that out to me privately, too. I'll avoid saying
that.

> passive: "TARGET is translated according to KEYWORDS."
>
> To avoid confusion, I usually say either "imperative" or "active
> voice" (treating them as synonymous).

"Imperative" seems to be the winner. "Active voice" doesn't achieve the
distinction that I wanted, which was to avoid using the third person singular
present active indicative ("Translates target").

Phew! Anyone got a grammar description for the grammar description language? :-)

- Julian

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Received on Sat Nov 26 20:39:00 2005