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Date:      Sun, 16 Jan 2000 09:31:20 -0800 (PST)
From:      "Eugene M. Kim" <ab@astralblue.com>
To:        Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
Cc:        Chris Costello <chris@FreeBSD.ORG>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/share/man/man5 sysctl.conf.5
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.20.0001160922030.2318-100000@home.astralblue.com>
In-Reply-To: <20000116133434.K3413@mojave.worldwide.lemis.com>

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On Sun, 16 Jan 2000, Greg Lehey wrote:

| Do you have any evidence?  I suspect this is an impression that native
| English speakers have about the language.  In fact, I believe most
| non-native speakers spend some time learning some contractions and may
| be confused in some cases if they're omitted (though probably not in
| this case).

No, they (including me and my friends) are not confused if contractions
aren't used.  In almost all English classes (as a second language) they
first teach `you are' then explain briefly about its contracted form
`you're', not the opposite way.

In fact, it makes almost no difference even to non-native speakers once
they reach a certain level.  I would, however, prefer non-contracted
form in manual pages because they are public documents.

Regards,
Eugene

-- 
Eugene M. Kim <ab@astralblue.com>

"Is your music unpopular?  Make it popular; make music
which people like, or make people who like your music."



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