Hi,
On 2023-07-16 04:34, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
[...]
> Because natural language demands a bit of Postel's Law, the foregoing
> are generally understood by English speakers despite their non-standard
> structure.
>
[...]
>> BTW, that's the only case where it says to not use hyphens, and since
>> by being alone it's necessarily not following a noun, I'd say it
>> doesn't fall in this rule, and so a hyphen would be deserved.
>
> I'd agree. I cite authorities only because I cannot expect people to
> take only my word at such things. My authority as a grammarian is
> limited. Unlike some, I don't have God and Ayn Rand for parents.
And yet your words make more sense than those of the "authorities". ;)
>
>> I don't see reasons to avoid it in the links above.
>>
>> So, I'm tending to conclude that it's necessary, or at least useful or
>> tasteful. Please quote the relevant parts if you disagree.
I should have said, or decree their authority rescinded in our territories.
They no authority here no mo. :D
>
> Recalling the case at issue:
>
> .BR MSG_ERRQUEUE " (" recvmsg "() only; since Linux 2.2)"
>
> I would find the addition of a hyphen before "only" to be superfluous.
> As I said before, it disambiguates nothing. Further, if any of these
> annotations ever has to be compounded, as in a man page that documents
> several functions but requires annotation only for a subset of them, the
> use of hyphens as you intend is liable to add clutter.
>
> .BR MSG_BAZQUEUE " (" foomsg "()-, " barmsg "()-only; since Linux 7.99)"
>
> Consider also the possibility that you may want to invert set
> membership; perhaps 6 out of 7 functions in a page accept a certain
> parameter.
>
> .BR MSG_BAZQUEUE " (not " quxmsg "(); since Linux 7.99)"
>
> There is no correct place for a hyphen here.
Yeah, a hyphen is better omitted for your reasons.
--- Mr. Sed project:
>
> Will do. I've gotten sidetracked by the great automated "Mr. Sed"[1]
> project, which turns out to have some prerequisites if I am to
> demonstrate no changes in formatted text as I intend.
>
> Early findings:
>
> 1. I think I have raised warnings to this list before about
> manipulating adjustment and hyphenation outside of table regions
> with `ad` and `hy` requests; the Linux man-pages do so
> systematically around hundreds of tables, attempting (but failing)
> to (reliably) "reset" them after tables, often with miserable
> results. Fixing this is a separate, prior sed(1) project.
Great.
>
> 2. An ".sp 1" hack, also after tables, to work around a groff
> pre-1.23.0 bug is also not necessary and the time to sweep it away
> is near.
While it may not be necessary, I'm all-in for killing such a workaround
ASAP, to avoid contributors from imitating it.
Cheers,
Alex
> I may not _have_ to do this one to satisfy "Mr. Sed",
> though. I will keep you advised.
>
> Regards,
> Branden
>
> [1] the rewrite of man page cross references to use the new groff 1.23.0
> `MR` macro, a feature I have written about on this list before and
> which is covered in the release announcement sent here earlier this
> month by Bertrand Garrigues
--
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
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