From owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG  Tue Sep 13 21:53:39 2005
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From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
To: Gary W.@ Swearingen <garys@opusnet.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 17:47:43 -0400
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Cc: doc-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-doc@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org,
	Kevin Oberman <oberman@es.net>
Subject: Re: cvs commit: doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/boot chapter.sgml
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On Tuesday 13 September 2005 05:34 pm, Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
> "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net> writes:
> >> From: garys@opusnet.com (Gary W. Swearingen)
> >> 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.
>
> ...
>
> > The example you gave is not valid because it is only grammatically
> > correct when there are two MBRs. One MBR - singular verb.
>
> There should be two MBRs in the reader's grammar processor, if not in
> the text; one of them is implied (by the second "by", regardless of
> what other purpose it serves in the sentence).

Not in the English I know. :)

> But I'm now out-voted.  Try this:
>
>     The MBR installed by FreeBSD's installer or boot0cfg(8) is ...
>
> which is better anyway.

Yes, that does work better.

-- 
John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve"  =  http://www.FreeBSD.org