Writing English.

[inode0]

On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 2:54 PM, Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>
> 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?

In American usage this is acceptable and common. But if it bothers you
that much why didn't you just correct it on the wiki in a fraction of
the time it took you to rant about it here?

John