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Thread: English Grammar question

English Grammar question

From
Susanne Ebrecht
Date:
Hello,

during translation the history.sgml - I found the following sentences in

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/history.html

"The design of the rule system at that time was described in The design of the POSTGRES rules system. The rationale and architecture of the storage manager were detailed in The design of the POSTGRES storage system "

I am not sure if the grammar is correct here.

My feeling says it should be:

"is decribed" and "are detailed"  instead of "was and were"

I am pretty sure these books still exist.

Susanne
-- 
Susanne Ebrecht - 2ndQuadrant
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training and Services
www.2ndQuadrant.com

Re: English Grammar question

From
Dave Page
Date:
On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 9:08 AM, Susanne Ebrecht
<susanne@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> during translation the history.sgml - I found the following sentences in
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/history.html
>
> "The design of the rule system at that time was described in The design of
> the POSTGRES rules system. The rationale and architecture of the storage
> manager were detailed in The design of the POSTGRES storage system "
>
> I am not sure if the grammar is correct here.
>
> My feeling says it should be:
>
> "is decribed" and "are detailed"  instead of "was and were"
>
> I am pretty sure these books still exist.

It seems fine to me. The tense refers to when it was written, not when
the papers were available (or not).


--
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: English Grammar question

From
Simon Riggs
Date:
On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 9:08 AM, Susanne Ebrecht
<susanne@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> during translation the history.sgml - I found the following sentences in
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/history.html
>
> "The design of the rule system at that time was described in The design of
> the POSTGRES rules system. The rationale and architecture of the storage
> manager were detailed in The design of the POSTGRES storage system "
>
> I am not sure if the grammar is correct here.
>
> My feeling says it should be:
>
> "is decribed" and "are detailed"  instead of "was and were"
>
> I am pretty sure these books still exist.

I think both are correct, but you are right that those books still
exist and so it looks archaic and can be reworded.

--
 Simon Riggs                   http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
 PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

Re: English Grammar question

From
Heikki Linnakangas
Date:
On 30.03.2011 11:08, Susanne Ebrecht wrote:
> Hello,
>
> during translation the history.sgml - I found the following sentences in
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/history.html
>
> "The design of the rule system at that time was described in /The design
> of the POSTGRES rules system/
> <http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/biblio.html#STON87A>. The
> rationale and architecture of the storage manager were detailed in /The
> design of the POSTGRES storage system
> <http://db.cs.berkeley.edu/papers/ERL-M87-06.pdf>/"
>
> I am not sure if the grammar is correct here.
>
> My feeling says it should be:
>
> "is decribed" and "are detailed" instead of "was and were"
>
> I am pretty sure these books still exist.

Both would be correct, but with a slightly different meaning. What it
means now is that someone wrote a description of (= described) the
design in that book. If you change it to "is described", it means that
there is a description on the (old) design, with nothing said about when
the description was written.

The difference becomes more clear if you change the sentence to active form:

"[Some unnamed person] described the design of the rule system at that
time in /The design of the POSTGRES rules system" (was described)

vs.

"/The design of the POSTGRES rules system/ describes the design of the
rules system at that time"  (is described)

--
   Heikki Linnakangas
   EnterpriseDB   http://www.enterprisedb.com

Re: English Grammar question

From
Robert Haas
Date:
On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 4:18 AM, Heikki Linnakangas
<heikki.linnakangas@enterprisedb.com> wrote:
> On 30.03.2011 11:08, Susanne Ebrecht wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> during translation the history.sgml - I found the following sentences in
>>
>> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/history.html
>>
>> "The design of the rule system at that time was described in /The design
>> of the POSTGRES rules system/
>> <http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/biblio.html#STON87A>. The
>> rationale and architecture of the storage manager were detailed in /The
>> design of the POSTGRES storage system
>> <http://db.cs.berkeley.edu/papers/ERL-M87-06.pdf>/"
>>
>> I am not sure if the grammar is correct here.
>>
>> My feeling says it should be:
>>
>> "is decribed" and "are detailed" instead of "was and were"
>>
>> I am pretty sure these books still exist.
>
> Both would be correct, but with a slightly different meaning. What it means
> now is that someone wrote a description of (= described) the design in that
> book. If you change it to "is described", it means that there is a
> description on the (old) design, with nothing said about when the
> description was written.

I think this is a correct analysis of grammar - both are correct, with
slightly different meanings.  I actually find both phrasings a bit
awkward, though.  What we're really trying to do here is provide the
links, but that is sometimes better done in a footnote or bibliography
than in the middle of a body of text.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: refer to books in footnote

From
Susanne Ebrecht
Date:
On 31.03.2011 18:11, Robert Haas wrote:
> I actually find both phrasings a bit
> ... What we're really trying to do here is provide the
> links, but that is sometimes better done in a footnote or bibliography
> than in the middle of a body of text.
>

Honestly, I like the idea for the  future.
I think the effort doing it in existing docs is too high - but for future
docs it is great.

I have another argument for it:

During translating the tutorial I found another sentence - referring books
for SQL beginners.

After very long thinking and after chatting about it with Peter - I
skipped the
sentence German translation.

I translate the documentation into German mostly for ppl who are not able
to speak English. It is not a good style to tell people here that when
they want
to learn SQL they should read English books - besides
there is a translated version of the books - which wasn't the case.

I would not have such a big problem here with translation when links to
books
would be just in a footnote - it don't look such painful to refer to
English books in
footnotes, when the books aren't available in German.

Just my 2Cent,

Susanne

--
Susanne Ebrecht - 2ndQuadrant
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training and Services
www.2ndQuadrant.com