From owner-cvs-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Sep 13 18:49:59 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: cvs-doc@FreeBSD.org Delivered-To: cvs-doc@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B158F16A41F; Tue, 13 Sep 2005 18:49:59 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from oberman@es.net) Received: from postal4.es.net (postal4.es.net [198.124.252.66]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C795D43D5E; Tue, 13 Sep 2005 18:49:56 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from oberman@es.net) Received: from ptavv.es.net ([198.128.4.29]) by postal4.es.net (Postal Node 4) with ESMTP (SSL) id IBA74465; Tue, 13 Sep 2005 11:49:54 -0700 Received: from ptavv (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ptavv.es.net (Tachyon Server) with ESMTP id C50B15D07; Tue, 13 Sep 2005 11:49:52 -0700 (PDT) To: garys@opusnet.com (Gary W. Swearingen) In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 12 Sep 2005 17:02:04 PDT." Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 11:49:52 -0700 From: "Kevin Oberman" Message-Id: <20050913184952.C50B15D07@ptavv.es.net> Cc: cvs-all@FreeBSD.org, doc-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-doc@FreeBSD.org, John Baldwin Subject: Re: cvs commit: doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/boot chapter.sgml X-BeenThere: cvs-doc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: CVS commit messages for the doc and www trees List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 18:49:59 -0000 > From: garys@opusnet.com (Gary W. Swearingen) > Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 17:02:04 -0700 > Sender: owner-cvs-all@freebsd.org > > John Baldwin writes: > > > The first sentence has a mismatch between subject and verb ("The FreeBSD > > MBR ... are"). Also, a better explanation is something more along the lines > > Here it is with the "...": > > + The MBR installed by FreeBSD's installer and by boot0cfg(8) > + are > > AFAIK, that is an permissible English abbreviation of this: > > The MBR installed by FreeBSD's installer and > the MBR installed by boot0cfg(8) are ... > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^-------(implied) > > The second "by" in my sentence is the clue that I've omitted the > second "the MBR installed" so as to not repeat it. Th 'by' is a preposition. The prepositional phrase does not impact the issue of the subject being singular or plural. > If I had used "MBRs", I would have omitted the second "by" and the > sentence would be ambiguous about weather each program installs > multiple MBRs. But on second thought, that would probably be OK, > since everyone knows they only install one. When I edit that file > again, or if I get more requests, I'll probably change it, but I don't > think it's required by the grammar. > > > that the MBR, strictly speaking, is just the 4-entry table at the end of the > > first sector. The boot code prior to the MBR is not part of the MBR. > > Who else says that? I don't recall ever seeing the partition table > called the MBR in 20+ years. The Master Boot Record has also been > called the master boot sector (1,150,000 times in Google). > Putting on my grammarian hat, the simple subject is MBR and the simple predicate should be singular. That is 'is', not 'are. The example you gave is not valid because it is only grammatically correct when there are two MBRs. One MBR - singular verb. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634