Received: from localhost (maia-4.hub.org [200.46.204.183]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 237BF9FA29C for ; Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:52:31 -0400 (AST) Received: from postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.183]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 43385-09 for ; Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:52:22 -0400 (AST) X-Greylist: domain auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.4 Received: from wr-out-0506.google.com (wr-out-0506.google.com [64.233.184.231]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5CECA9FA0E7 for ; Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:52:21 -0400 (AST) Received: by wr-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id 68so1393889wra for ; Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:52:20 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=em3yju2cg0YRY0MB2zI2BcYPxT49iHc9hp+TxzpyhYjDTXtnQr6nG+GwYa1TqYkHjZ/UWzFcrTdwHPRGREc/0ngOcOQNFb3klqmfL0uPVC3oUecajEKsWlalELT48LIzBrdd11JtnXTpxTMM84qY86u55JWgyOpvzCPNc8TRsd8= Received: by 10.90.98.10 with SMTP id v10mr8824897agb.1170179540581; Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:52:20 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.90.119.2 with HTTP; Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:52:20 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 06:52:20 +1300 From: "Andrej Ricnik-Bay" To: "Bruce Momjian" Subject: Re: "May", "can", "might" Cc: PostgreSQL-documentation In-Reply-To: <200701301739.l0UHdQS05488@momjian.us> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <200701301739.l0UHdQS05488@momjian.us> X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Archive-Number: 200701/31 X-Sequence-Number: 4127 On 1/31/07, Bruce Momjian wrote: > Standard English uses "may", "can", and "might" in different ways: > > may - permission, "You may borrow my rake." > > can - ability, "I can lift that log." > > might - possibility, "It might rain today." > > Unfortunately, in conversational English, their use is often mixed, as > in, "You may use this variable to do X", when in fact, "can" is a better > choice. Similarly, "It may crash" is better stated, "It might crash". > > I would like to clean up our documentation to consistently use these > words. Objections? My full support. :} I like clarity, specially on such important things as communication! > (Who says were obsessive?) :-)