On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 1:34 PM, J.C. Roberts <list-jcr@designtools.org>
wrote:
quoted text
> Personally, I favor brevity to avoid the issue entirely.
>
> The most important question is, if nit-pickery like this even matters?

I really think not.  We pick a or an and live with it.  I think your
contortions to avoid the choice impair the text.

quoted text
> It took more far time to write this nit-pickery than it took to create the
> diffs to fix things (according to *my* view of the world, which may or
> may not be entirely accurate, but it's the only one I have, and hence, the
diffs may or may not be acceptable).

When making multiple changes, multiple diffs are preferred, especially
when the changes are controversial.

quoted text
>  .Nm
> -supports a multitude of sub-types,
> -described in the following sections:
> +supports the sub-types described below:

This is better.

quoted text
> -The following options are available for a
>  .Xr bridge 4
> -interface:
> +interface options:

The man pages seem to prefer prose and complete sentences over fact
dumps.  So do I.  I think fragments impair the flow of the text.

quoted text
> -The interface itself can be configured with
> -.Xr ifconfig 8 ;
> -see its manual page for more information.
> +.Nm
> +interfaces can be configured with
> +.Xr ifconfig 8 .

I think this is better too.