[anonsec] comments on the BTNS core I-D

[Nicolas.Williams at sun.com (Nicolas Williams)]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 01:50:57PM -0400, Stephen Kent wrote:
> At 12:15 PM -0500 7/30/07, Nicolas Williams wrote:
> >On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 12:27:44PM -0400, Stephen Kent wrote:
> >> At 10:47 AM -0500 7/30/07, Nicolas Williams wrote:
> >> >...
> >> >
> >> >It was misspelled, and no word is missing ("because <adjective>" is a
> >> >legitimate English language idiom, as in "Joe was lazy because
> >> >spoiled").  It is an odd idiom, but one that I'm fond of.
> >>
> >> For standards documents we tend to look for somewhat more formal writing
> >> :-).
> >
> >Sure, but show me that this is not formal (it's harder than you think).
> 
> Do you even have a copy of "Strunk and White" on your bookshelf?

I have a couple such books in my bookshelf, but I'm not at home at the
moment.  I've seen recent debates on prescriptivism that have caused me
to doubt some of my own dislikes about other people's use of English.

(I've been noticing that use of 'because' in several novels lately too,
including Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson.)

> >Or did you mean that we want to use a subset of English likely to be
> >understood by most readers, including those for whom English is not a
> >first language?  :)  Such an argument wins me over more easily :)
> 
> That's a good argument too, and if that's the one that will cause 
> this text to be changed, I'll buy into it :-).

OK :)

> >> yes, and it would be appropriate to not that here.
> >
> >Er, "to not that here"?  Did you mean "to do that here"?
> 
> no, I meant to "note that here." Just a single letter typo :-).

OK.