Elements of style (was: Re: Adobe Type Manager)

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Article #4974

#4974

From: Howard A. Landman x61391
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1989 18:19

29 lines
1652 bytes

In article <40@fleet.UUCP> mel@.UUCP () writes:
>Sorry but we didn't have the Plus version available for the demo.  According
>to the brochure, ATM will work on Pluses but since I did notice a slight
>slowdown of screen display on a IIX (about 15%), I'd guesstamate the penalty
>to be higher than that on a Mac Plus.

What a great example of totally ambiguous sentence structure!  Does Mel mean

	1. I'd guess the penalty will be higher-than-that on a Mac Plus.

or

	2. I'd guess the penalty will be higher than that-on-a-Mac-Plus.

These have completely opposite meanings (the first says Plus has higher
penalty than IIX, the second says IIX has higher penalty than Plus), but
they're both reasonable interpretations of the same sentence!  (Although
careful reading of the context strongly indicates #1.)

More clear would have been either

	1. I'd guess the penalty on a Mac Plus will be higher than that.
or
	2. I'd guess the penalty will be higher on a Mac Plus.

Now you know why natural language understanding is not so easy to program.

	Howard A. Landman
	landman@sun.com

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Message-ID: <125074@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>

Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!sun-barr!newstop!sun!hanami!landman

References: <37@fleet.UUCP> <685@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> <40@fleet.UUCP>

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!sun-barr!newstop!sun!hanami!landman
From: landman%hanami@Sun.COM (Howard A. Landman x61391)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Elements of style (was: Re: Adobe Type Manager)
Keywords: Adobe ATM Type Manager
Message-ID: <125074@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 21 Sep 89 18:19:57 GMT
References: <37@fleet.UUCP> <685@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> <40@fleet.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: landman@sun.UUCP (Howard A. Landman x61391)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 29

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