Обсуждение: English Grammar question
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
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
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
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
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
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
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