Re: [PATCH, DOC] Fortran manual typos

[Ralf Wildenhues <Ralf dot Wildenhues at gmx dot de>]

* FX Coudert wrote on Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 12:54:31AM CET:
> OK. I have one question (out of curiosity):

> >-it starts a block, i.e. a nested level in the program.  In order to
> >+it starts a block, i.e.@: a nested level in the program.  In order to
> > represent this, the @code{block} member is set to point to a
> 
> I see you use a column after "i.e." while,

Erm, no.  "@:" is not a column, it tells texinfo to not add a larger
(end-of-sentence) space after this period.  If you saw me add a plain
colon after "i.e." or "e.g." that would be a bug.

> according to Wikipedia,  
> "American style guides tend to recommend that "e.g." and "i.e."  
> should generally be followed by a comma, just as "for example" and  
> "that is" would be; UK style tends to omit the comma." I'm not a  
> native speaker and my Oxford Style Guide and Butcher's are in the  
> friend's bedroom, which actually hosts friends tonight, so I can't  
> look it up. Any particular reason to use a column? (I see, from a  
> quick grep of GCC docs, that column and coma are equally represented.)

For one of my previous patches, I've been asked to use comma only in
places where one would add a pause at this point, when reading aloud,
otherwise a "@:".  As I'm not a native speaker, whenever reading aloud
wouldn't help me, I've been following the rough rule to add a comma
when the following represents a full subclause.  (I don't recall the
English term for what the following words are called otherwise.)
This tends to match the need to pause at this point.

Cheers,
Ralf