Writing English.

[Rolf Turner]

Just read some stuff on this list about "spins", a concept which had
not previously impinged itself upon my consciousness.  So I went and
had a look at the spins.fedoraproject.org page. It started off by saying
"What is a spin? Fedora spins are alternate version of Fedora, tailored 
...".

For God's sake, people!!!  That's "alternative versions"!!! Alternate
means "every other" or "every second".  Alternative means "available as
another possibility".  Saying "alternate" when you mean "alternative" is
sloppy, lazy thinking and irritates and confuses the reader.

Why can't computer geeks learn to write English correctly?

Of course the geeks are not alone in their inability.  I just read, in
this morning's New Zealand Herald, an article (reprinted from the 
Independent,
which you would think would get it right!) about Pope Francis, in which
it was said "Despite winning pundits for his graceful-but-radical 
abdication,
Benedict fell victim to ...".  Uh, I think the writer meant *plaudits*,
don't you?

Psigh!  What hope for humanity? :-)

     cheers,

     Rolf Turner