Re: Writing English.

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On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 03:17:32PM -0600, inode0 wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 2:54 PM, Rolf Turner <r.turner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Just read some stuff on this list about "spins", a concept which had
> > not previously impinged itself upon my consciousness.  So I went and
> > had a look at the spins.fedoraproject.org page. It started off by saying
> > "What is a spin? Fedora spins are alternate version of Fedora, tailored
> > ...".
> >
> > For God's sake, people!!!  That's "alternative versions"!!! Alternate
> > means "every other" or "every second".  Alternative means "available as
> > another possibility".  Saying "alternate" when you mean "alternative" is
> > sloppy, lazy thinking and irritates and confuses the reader.
> >
> > Why can't computer geeks learn to write English correctly?
> 
> In American usage this is acceptable and common. But if it bothers you
> that much why didn't you just correct it on the wiki in a fraction of
> the time it took you to rant about it here?

Actually, this is on the spins.fp.o site which isn't a wiki.  But
regardless, a query of https://www.google.com/search?q=alternate using
en_US locations shows this is acceptable usage.  We also tend to
misspell with vigor here. ;-)  Move along, nothing to see here...


-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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