On Sunday 14 November 2004 23:53, Patrick Durusau wrote:
> Michael,
>
> Since I won't be on the call tomorrow I thought I should tender a few
> written comments about the 'you can' style question.
(Same problem here)
> It is not improper grammar but a question of the style one uses in
> writing technical standards.
>
> I am not surprised that a native American introduced the phrase, most
> writing in the US being first person and bordering on the familiar.
>
> Not that such a style is necessarily a bad thing, in the proper place
> but I would argue it is inappropriate in standards.
My guess is that the person Michael refers to, was writing a user manual - Michael, is that correct?
In a manual that explains how to use an application, using "you" seems perfectly fine to me.
But indeed in a standard specification things are different, and it would be better to avoid using it.
--
David Faure, , sponsored by Trolltech to work on KDE,
Konqueror (http://www.konqueror.org), and KOffice (http://www.koffice.org).
