Bug#547477: update-manager-gnome: "which does neither remove" - -EENGLISH

[Stephan Peijnik]

#bts
tag 547477 +confirmed
thanks

Hi,

Thanks for your report. I am not a native English speaker, so spelling
or grammar problems are likely to exist in update-manager.

On Sun, 2009-09-20 at 20:35 -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 12:22:32AM +0200, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote:
> > Steve Langasek wrote:
> > > Launching update-manager is sid gives me the following message:
> 
> > >   Do you want to perform a safe-upgrade, which does neither remove packages
> > >   nor install new ones?
> 
> > > Aside from "safe-upgrade" being aptitude-specific jargon that doesn't belong
> > > here, this is not proper English.  It should be written:

Do you have any suggestions for alternative terms we could use? I used
the safe-upgrade term because selecting that option does pretty much
the same (I really don't want to say "exactly the same" here without
checking the aptitude code) as aptitude's "safe-upgrade" option: it
upgrades all packages which do not introduce new dependencies or require
the removal of other packages.

> > >   Do you want to perform a safe-upgrade, which does not remove packages
> > >   or install new ones?
> 
> > Just curious, is this a matter of British/American English? I was taught in
> > school the former option is fine IIRC.
> 
> No, it's not.  There are two possible ways to construct this in English:
> 
>    "[this] neither removes packages nor installs new ones"
> 
> or
> 
>    "[this] does not remove packages [n]or install new ones"
> 
> The "[this] does neither remove [...]" is not something that occurs in
> American or British English, TTBOMK.

I can only say that I was, just like Emilio, taught that option I used
is correct in school. 

The spelling is fixed in update-manager's bzr repository now and will be
included in the next upload.

-- Stephan