Subject: Question about grammmer for RFCs

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 16:02:39 -0400

Hi,

I am asking this context of the RFC editor's course and as a Wg chair, 
though the questions are prompted by having to incorporate the edits 
made to draft-irtf-routing-reqs and drafts that have emerged from my 
WGs.  I have operated on the assumption that any correct form of 
English was acceptable, and have taught that in the class.  I now 
realize that I was wrong and want to get it right.

In many of the required edits, the originals were not grammatically 
wrong, but rather,  did not correspond to the RFC editor's preferred 
usage. E.g.
  - passive constructions were deprecated
  - lists must include the optional comma before the last element
  - preference for American forms and spellings over other
    legitimate English forms and spellings.

Anyway, my question, is there a reference that serves as the rule book 
that editors and chairs can refer to as the IETF's authoritative 
grammar?

I have copied the WG chair's list on the question, since I think the 
answer is important for us all.

thanks
a.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 17:14:27 +0200

Avri,

I don't quite understand.... when the RFC Editor has done this to my 
documents, the RFC Editor has made the changes, and I've only seen them by 
means of the diff file, so I've had no additional work because of the 
grammar details. (I've had work because of other changes that I felt needed 
to be rolled back, but that's another issue).

So what is the "incorporation" you speak of?

(my sympathies for the basic point - I have also commented to the RFC 
Editor about the lack of a clear referent for their style guidelines - I, 
too, have been taught in school to omit the optional comma.)

                     Harald

--On 8. juli 2004 16:02 -0400 [email-masked] wrote:

> though the questions are prompted by having to incorporate the edits made
> to draft-irtf-routing-reqs and drafts that have emerged from my WGs.  I
> have operated on the assumption that any correct form of English was
> acceptable, and have taught that in the class.  I now realize that I was
> wrong and want to get it right.
>
> that editors and chairs can refer to as the IETF's authoritative grammar?
>

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 12:16:44 -0700

Hi,

As I indicated the question was prompted mostly by my desire to want to 
teach the correct things in the editor's course - I used to teach that 
any form of correct English was correct, and this is obviously not the 
case.

The incorporation I speak of was due to the fact that an IRTF RRG 
draft, hence a 'personal' draft by definition, was rejected by the RFC 
editor, with recommended edits and several questions that needed to be 
addressed.  I am currently going through the draft trying to make it 
acceptable.  the RFC editor was kind enough to send back the .txt file 
with all the edits they required.  It is those that I was incorporating 
into my .xml files.

a.

On 12 jul 2004, at 08.14, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

> documents, the RFC Editor has made the changes, and I've only seen 
> them by means of the diff file, so I've had no additional work because 
> of the grammar details. (I've had work because of other changes that I 
> felt needed to be rolled back, but that's another issue).
>
> Editor about the lack of a clear referent for their style guidelines - 
> I, too, have been taught in school to omit the optional comma.)
>
>                     Harald
>
>> made

---

From: Rob Austein <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 16:26:38 -0400

Only the RFC Editor can tell us what the RFC Editor uses as a style
manual.  However, for whatever my own opinion is worth: it's hard to
go very far wrong following Strunk & White.