[whatwg] EDITORIAL - Suggested corrections

Tab Atkins Jr. jackalmage at gmail.com
Fri Aug 28 13:27:46 PDT 2009


On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 3:23 PM, Kevin Benson<kevin.m.benson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 3:43 PM, Ian Hickson<ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Aug 2009, Kevin Benson wrote:
>>>
>>> 4.10.4.1.17 Radio Button state
>>>
>>> "Either neither a nor b have a form owner, or they both have one and
>>> it is the same for both."
>>>
>>> S//Either a and b both have no form owner//Either neither a nor b have
>>> a form owner// < - - (rewrote "either neither")
>>
>> What's wrong with either neither?
>>
>
> I just hadn't ever seen and couldn't find another instance of such a
> grammatical construction in technical documentation...anywhere. Is my
> suggestion not _as_ clear (or clearer) ???

Wow, didn't see this the first time through.  "Either neither" is
difficult to parse on a first pass.  One's instinct is to assume that
it's a grammatical error.  One has to read a bit to decipher that the
"neither" is a nested phrase within the "either".  While this is not
ambiguous, neither is it clear.

I like Kevin's suggested rewrite.



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