From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <7359f0490512052301j592031dft96b46e860da7198d@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 23:01:52 -0800 From: Rob Pike To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] Capitalization in man pages. In-Reply-To: <8FBB88DB-680F-4180-ACCD-DD0E29626B99@orthanc.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: <7359f0490512051714m21e8b7ffrd1e60bab69d8edc4@mail.gmail.com> <8FBB88DB-680F-4180-ACCD-DD0E29626B99@orthanc.ca> Topicbox-Message-UUID: b9195bf8-ead0-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 They are English text and English text has rules. Accuracy and consistency counts for English, too. The word 'the' is not capitlized unless it begins a sentence. Why should any other word behave differently? I know, because programs are special. Well, they're not - at least within the context of English text. I spent most of my time for two years editing these pages for publication. To avoid the confusion that can be introduced by capitalizing a magic word, where possible I rewrote the sentence to avoid the problem. Not Qsort sorts data but The qsort function sorts data If you see many instances that sow such confusion, either I missed them the first time or, more likely, they've been edited since by someone less focused. Fix the text. -rob On 12/5/05, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote: > > On Dec 5, 2005, at 5:14 PM, Rob Pike wrote: > > > Sentences begin with capital letters. > > But not all proper names do. > > These are man pages, not novels. I think consistency (accuracy, > really) wins here. > > --lyndon >