[Rd] Typo(s) in proc.time.Rd and comment about ?proc.time (PR#8092)

[roger bos]

I didn't know there was a language called American, I thought I spoke
English too, even if mine does not sound as eloquent...  This thread
should provide credit to the R Core Team for bringing R to such a
level of perfection that these are types of bug reports submitted now
adays.  Microsoft is still playing constant catch up with major
security fixes and R is debating about 'of' or 'on' in documentation.

In all seriousness, this does show the level of quality of the product... 


On 8/25/05, P Ehlers <ehlers at math.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
> David,
> 
> Re: "of the order of ..." vs "on the order of ..."
> 
> My Oxford dictionary has "of (or 'in' or 'on') the order of",
> so that there is no correction needed in proc.time.Rd. And, yes,
> I do hear 'of', at least on the northern side of the 49th
> parallel. But please don't let these comments discourage
> further documentation improvement suggestions.
> 
> Peter Ehlers
> U. of Calgary (Canada)
> 
> dhinds at sonic.net wrote:
> > ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk wrote:
> >
> >>On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 Weigand.Stephen at mayo.edu wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>I just downloaded the file
> >>>
> >>>ftp://ftp.stat.math.ethz.ch/Software/R/R-devel.tar.gz
> >>>
> >>>and within proc.time.Rd, the second paragraph of the \value
> >>>section contains a typo:
> >
> >
> >>I believe your understanding of the English language is different from the
> >>author here, who is English.  (You on the other hand seem to think there
> >>is no need to give your country in your address when writing an addess in
> >>Denmark.)  The preferred language for R documentation is English (and not
> >>American).
> >
> >
> >>>The resolution of the times will be system-specific; it is common for
> >>>them to be recorded to of the order of 1/100 second, and elapsed [...]
> >>>                    ^^^^^
> >>>
> >>>I'd say replacing "to of" with just "of" would grammatically
> >>>fix the sentence.
> >
> >
> >>I'd say it was correct and your correction is incorrect.  In English we
> >>say `recorded to 1/100th of a second', not `recorded 1/100th second'.
> >
> >
> > The correction was incorrect, but so was the original.  I've never
> > heard the expression "of the order of"; common usage (in English or
> > American, as far as I know) is "on the order of".  Your "recorded to
> > 1/100th of a second" is also ok.
> >
> >
> >>>Second, the \note{} section for Unix-like machines reads:
> >>>
> >>>It is possible to compile \R without support for \code{proc.time},
> >>>when the function will throw an error.
> >>>
> >>>I believe this is ungrammatical and suggest replacing
> >>>"when the function will throw an error" with "in which
> >>>case the function will throw an error".
> >
> >
> >>Again, the statement given is the intended meaning.
> >
> >
> > I think more clear might be, "it is possible to compile R without
> > support for proc.time, when the function *would* throw an error".
> >
> > -- Dave
> >
> 
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