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Re: Fuzzy words [was Uppercase question for RFC2119 words]

"Ben Campbell" <ben@nostrum.com> Tue, 29 March 2016 13:30 UTC

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From: Ben Campbell <ben@nostrum.com>
To: Scott Bradner <sob@sobco.com>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy words [was Uppercase question for RFC2119 words]
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2016 08:30:00 -0500
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On 29 Mar 2016, at 6:27, Scott Bradner wrote:

> fwiw - seems to me that the basic idea that MUST and must are the same 
> is wrong and will lead to
> even more confusion
>
> imo - any clarification should (not SHOULD - i.e. the english 
> language) say
> 	1/ some authors capitalize some words for emphasis and clarity
> 	2/ there is no requirement to use capitalized words
> 	2/ when capitalized words are used RFC 2119 says what the capitalized 
> words mean
> 	3/ non capitalized words are interpreted using normal English

I agree heartily, especially with 3. As it is, we often get tortured 
language where people try to avoid such words in text. That makes the 
writing hard, and the reading even harder.


Ben.

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