linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 16/22] trivial: fix typo "that that" in multiple files

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Date:	Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:17:57 +0100
From:	David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>
To:	paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com
Cc:	dhowells@...hat.com, Jaswinder Singh Rajput <jaswinder@...nel.org>,
	trivial <trivial@...nel.org>, LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 16/22] trivial: fix typo "that that" in multiple files

Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:

> The "that that" can read awkwardly even for native English (or, for that
> matter, American) speakers, even though it sounds quite natural in spoken
> English.

I think it sounds quite natural when you say it because you say them
differently - or at least I do.  The first 'that' is a conjunction, and the
second a determinative.  Possibly the determinative should be in italics, but
that's hard to do in plain text.

> Would it be possible to reword as for the RCU example?
> ...
> 	"likely that this process will submit another request soon, and that"

This is actually the as-iosched.txt example.

To use the RCU example:

	Therefore, as soon as a CPU is seen passing through any of these
	three states, we know that that CPU has exited any previous RCU
	read-side critical sections.

I think that in this example, "a CPU" should be paired with the "that"
determinative because you're not talking about the CPU you've got in your hand
per se, but a random CPU over there.

If you instead said "this CPU", being more specific, I think that's when you'd
use the "this" determinative:

	Therefore, as soon as this CPU is seen passing through any of these
	three states, we know that this CPU has exited any previous RCU
	read-side critical sections.

Of course, I'm not a qualified linguist - I know enough to make stuff up and
hopefully make it sound plausible.

David
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