Re: To non-native English writers: expunging the solecism "This allows to do something."

[Alan Mackenzie]

Mello, Mathieu.

On Tue, 26 Jan 2016, Mathieu Lirzin wrote:

> Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

> As a non-native english speaker, I feel bad when I read such injunctions
> from you [RMS] or Alan.

I apologise for this.  My intention was to point out (and fix) a common 
error, so as to make people aware of it.

> When stating such thing, it would be nice to acknowledge that it can be
> difficult to write correct english especially when it isn't your primary
> language.  Otherwise you feed a power relationship between contributors,
> which is already strong enough.

Again, apologies.  I understand the difficulties in writing in a foreign 
language (I'm a native English speaker living in Germany), and it is 
really hard to get exactly right, far harder than making program source 
work correctly.

Was there anything else about my first post I could have done better, so 
as to avoid the misunderstanding about power relationships?

> What about creating some documentation about common english mistakes to
> avoid, instead of urging people to not make them?  How would you feel if
> the same injuctions were made about correctly using Git or anything you
> are not comfortable at?

Well, I have quite often asked for help with git and have been grateful 
for the help offered.  I think (or I hope), that if my written German 
were criticised the way I criticised "allows to ...", I would accept the 
corrections and try to write Geman better in the future.

> --
> Mathieu Lirzin
--
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).