On 22/11/2025 05:37, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
At 2025-11-21T20:49:46-0800, Collin Funk wrote:
+ 'timeout' now honors ignored signals and will not propagate them. For e.g.
+ timeout(1) in a shell backgrounded job, will not terminate upon receiving
+ SIGINT or SIGQUIT, as these are ignored by default in shell background jobs.
Doesn't "For e.g." roughly translate to "For for example"?
Yes, and consequently this Latin abbreviation should get a comma after
it.
A few years back, I managed to get a style reform into the Linux
man-pages.
Use of e.g., i.e., etc., a.k.a., and similar
In general, the use of abbreviations such as "e.g.", "i.e.",
"etc.", "cf.", and "a.k.a." should be avoided, in favor of suit‐
able full wordings ("for example", "that is", "and so on", "com‐
pare to", "also known as").
The only place where such abbreviations may be acceptable is in
short parenthetical asides (e.g., like this one).
Always include periods in such abbreviations, as shown here. In
addition, "e.g." and "i.e." should always be followed by a comma.
Plura faciunt homines e consutudine, quam e ratione.
Coreutils already enforces this form for I.e.:
# Enforce lowercase 'e' in "I.e.".sc_prohibit_uppercase_id_est:
@prohibit='I\.E\.' \
halt='Uppercase "Id Est" abbreviation; use "I.e.," instead' \
$(_sc_search_regexp)
# Enforce double-space before "I.e." at the beginning of a sentence.
sc_ensure_dblspace_after_dot_before_id_est:
@prohibit='\. I\.e\.' \
halt='Single space after dot before "i.e."; use ". i.e." instead' \
$(_sc_search_regexp)
# Enforce comma after "i.e." (at least before a blank or at EOL).
sc_ensure_comma_after_id_est:
@prohibit='[Ii]\.e\.( |$$)' \
halt='Missing comma after "i.e."; use "i.e.," instead' \
$(_sc_search_regexp)
So I suppose we could do the same for exempli gratia,
or at least prohibit "[fF]or " preceding it.
cheers,
Padraig
