Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 22:38:30 -0400
From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: PostgreSQL-documentation <pgsql-docs@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Add comma after e.g. and i.e.?
Message-ID: <20200827023830.GF13370@momjian.us>
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 <2760922.1598382644@sss.pgh.pa.us>
 <20200825192732.GF26852@momjian.us>
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On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 03:27:33PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 03:10:44PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> > Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:
> > > We are inconsistently about adding a comma after e.g. and i.e.:
> > 
> > > This summarizes the recommended behavior:
> > > 	https://jakubmarian.com/comma-after-i-e-and-e-g/
> > > 	In British English, “i.e.” and “e.g.” are not followed by a comma, so
> > > 	the first example above would be:
> > > 		They sell computer components, e.g. motherboards, graphic cards, CPUs.
> > > 	Virtually all American style guides recommend to follow both “i.e.” and
> > > 	“e.g.” with a comma (just like if “that is” and “for example” were used
> > > 	instead), so the very same sentence in American English would become:
> > 
> > > So, what do we want to do?  Leave it unchanged, or pick one of these
> > > styles?
> > 
> > I think it's fairly pointless to try to enforce such a thing.
> > Even if you made the docs 100% consistent on the issue today,
> > they wouldn't stay that way for long, because nobody else is
> > really going to care about it.
> > 
> > (FWIW, I generally write a comma myself.  But I'm not going
> > to cry about text that hasn't got one.)
> 
> I wasn't worried about enforcing going forward, but rather if we should
> make what we have now consistent.

I plan to move forward with this, and will backpatch it so later patches
are easier to apply.  I think we are fine with adding inconsistent
usages over time --- this is probably only something we will address in
mass every 10 years or so.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             https://enterprisedb.com

  The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness, Bruce Lee