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### Small grammar correction on my article

Anderson Silva [afsilva at gmail.com]

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 01:15:24 -0400

The line:

Where 90 and 270 is how many degrees the turtle should turn given the right or left command.

Should probably read:

Where 90 and 270 are how many degrees the turtle should turn given the right or left command.

Apologies for not catching that earlier.

    --
    http://www.the-silvas.com

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Anderson Silva [afsilva at gmail.com]

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 01:19:02 -0400

boy i am embarrassed, I guess the link to my first article is also incorrect:

It should be: http://linuxgazette.net/issue43/silva.logo.html

under:

Exactly ten years ago, I was writing my very *first article* for the Linux Gazette.

I apologize yet again,

AS

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Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 01:40:52 -0500

On Wed, Sep 02, 2009 at 01:19:02AM -0400, Anderson Silva wrote:

    > boy i am embarrassed, I guess the link to my first article is also incorrect:
    >
    > It should be: http://linuxgazette.net/issue43/silva.logo.html

[smile] We take good care of our authors. That was fixed already.

    --
    * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *

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Anderson Silva [afsilva at gmail.com]

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 10:41:10 -0400

The link still broken though: http://linuxgazette.net/166/silva.html is it a batch process that will update it later?

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Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 11:09:12 -0500

On Wed, Sep 02, 2009 at 10:41:10AM -0400, Anderson Silva wrote:

    > The link still broken though: http://linuxgazette.net/166/silva.html
    > is it a batch process that will update it later?

Whoops - I updated the link structure but mistyped the filename itself. Who expects more than one error in a single link, anyway? It's fixed now.

    --
    * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *

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Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 01:40:05 -0500

On Wed, Sep 02, 2009 at 01:15:24AM -0400, Anderson Silva wrote:

    > The line:
    >
    > Where 90 and 270 is how many degrees the turtle should turn given the
    > right or left command.
    >
    > Should probably read:
    >
    > Where 90 and 270 are how many degrees the turtle should turn given the
    > right or left command.

Actually, this is one of those places where English are very confusing. "is", in the above case, implies "is the angle", whereas "are" is problematic - if you had said "are the angles", that would have worked fine, but "is how many degrees" would be a poor fit for that plural.

In any case, the above phrase passed muster with four proofreaders including yours truly, so if anyone complains, just send them to us: we've got a special dark cellar for That Kind of People.

    --
    * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *

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Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 10:43:53 -0700

Quoting Ben Okopnik (ben@linuxgazette.net):

    > Actually, this is one of those places where English are very confusing.
    >  "is", in the above case, implies "is the angle", whereas "are" is
    > problematic - if you had said "are the angles", that would have worked
    > fine, but "is how many degrees" would be a poor fit for that plural.
    >
    > In any case, the above phrase passed muster with four proofreaders
    > including yours truly, so if anyone complains, just send them to us:
    > we've got a special dark cellar for That Kind of People.

Our other proofreaders were so diligent on Anderson's article that it's the one piece in issue 166 I never was able to check out for editing. It was always being worked on. Bravo, team!

Anyway, I concur exactly with Ben's assessment: The sentence is fine either way, with the choice dependent on what you think the implied reference is.

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