Path: ...!2.eu.feeder.erje.net!3.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: a plain English "FizzBuZZ" idiom Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 10:54:42 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 38 Message-ID: <861q80ltp9.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <86il1el8lp.fsf@linuxsc.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="6af46d5f1415f729bb6ec55b5ea784b7"; logging-data="3979034"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/GG1ErZGOzaJXq4eqDmQU9LA5oSAj8oR0=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:awTONCh7P7liOhyt7lSV2e6Waxw= sha1:voBPC8A/wQVHUFg6nHg/Lax8nA4= Bytes: 2505 Mike Gonta writes: > On 2024-03-22 9:05 a.m., Tim Rentsch wrote: > >> Bruce Axtens writes: >> >>> On 2/03/2024 4:06 am, Mike Gonta wrote: >>> >>>> if the counter is divisible by 3 then >>> >>> The counter is always divisible by 3. It is not always *evenly* >>> divisible by 3. >> >> In mathematics standard terminology uses "a is divisible by b" >> to mean "a is an integer multiple of b". The "evenly" is not >> needed. > > Thanks Tim, that's an excellent point. > And while some think that redundancy in grammar is bad, it definitely > has it's uses. [...] I feel obliged to point out that the word here is "its", not "it's". The word "it's" is a contraction for "it is". "It" is a personal pronoun, and the possessive forms of personal pronouns are always spelled without apostrophes, as for example "he" and "his". The word "it" follows this rule. If you feel a need to add some redundancy, I suggest if the counter is divisible by 3 (meant in the mathematical sense of being an integer multiple of 3) In answer to your other question, thank you for asking. My preference is not to be attributed in your website pages. The more impersonal form "It was pointed out that ..." conveys the most important information, and focuses readers' attention on that information without distracting them with extraneous information about who did the pointing.