1@c {{{Texinfo}}}@c {{{ Setup 2\input texinfo 3@setfilename diction.info 4@settitle diction, print wordy and commonly misused phrases in sentences 5 6@syncodeindex ky cp 7@syncodeindex pg cp 8@syncodeindex tp cp 9 10@defcodeindex op 11@syncodeindex op fn 12@syncodeindex vr fn 13 14@ifinfo 15@direntry 16* diction: (diction). print wordy and commonly misused phrases in sentences. 17@end direntry 18This file documents @command{diction}, a program to print wordy and 19commonly misused phrases in sentences. 20 21Published by the Free Software Foundation, 2259 Temple Place - Suite 330 23Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA 24 25Copyright 1997-2007 Michael Haardt 26 27Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this 28manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are 29preserved on all copies. 30 31Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of 32this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that 33the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a 34permission notice identical to this one. 35 36Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual 37into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, 38except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved 39by Michael Haardt. 40@end ifinfo 41 42@setchapternewpage off 43@c }}} 44@c {{{ Title page 45@titlepage 46@title diction, print wordy and commonly misused phrases in sentences 47@subtitle version @VERSION@, @UPDATED@ 48@author Michael Haardt 49 50@page 51@vskip 0pt plus 1filll 52Copyright @copyright{} 1997-2007 Michael Haardt 53 54@sp 2 55Published by the Free Software Foundation, @* 5659 Temple Place - Suite 330, @* 57Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA 58 59Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this 60manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are 61preserved on all copies. 62 63Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of 64this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that 65the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a 66permission notice identical to this one. 67 68Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual 69into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, 70except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved 71by Michael Haardt. 72 73@end titlepage 74@c }}} 75@c {{{ Overview 76@page 77@ifnottex 78@node Top 79@top Diction 80 81@command{diction} prints wordy and commonly misused phrases in sentences. 82 83This document was produced for version @VERSION@ of @sc{gnu} 84@command{diction}. 85@end ifnottex 86 87@menu 88* Introduction:: Introduction. 89* Invoking:: Invoking @command{diction}; description of options. 90* Diagnostics:: Exit status returned by @command{diction}. 91* Reporting Bugs:: Reporting Bugs. 92* Concept Index:: A menu with all the topics in this manual. 93* Index:: A menu with all @command{diction} commands 94 and command-line options. 95@end menu 96@c }}} 97@c {{{ Introduction 98@node Introduction 99@chapter Introduction 100 101@command{diction} finds all sentences in a document that contain 102phrases from a database of frequently misused, bad or wordy diction. 103It further checks for double words. If no files are given, the document 104is read from standard input. Each found phrase is enclosed in @code{[ ]} 105(brackets). Suggestions and advice, if any, are printed headed by a right 106arrow @code{->}. A sentence is a sequence of words, that starts with a 107capitalised word and ends with a full stop, double colon, question mark 108or exclaimation mark. A single letter followed by a dot is considered an 109abbreviation, so it does not terminate a sentence. Various multi-letter 110abbreviations are recognized, they do not terminate a sentence as well, 111neither do fractional numbers. 112 113@command{diction} understands @command{cpp} @code{#line} lines for being 114able to give precise locations when printing sentences. 115 116There has been a diction command on old UNIX systems, which is now part 117of the AT&T DWB package. The original version was bound to roff by 118enforcing a call to @command{deroff}. This version is a reimplementation 119and must run in a pipe with @command{deroff} if you want to process 120roff documents. Similarly, you can run it in a pipe with @command{dehtml} 121or @command{detex} to process HTML or TeX documents. 122 123See also: 124 125Cherry, L.L.; Vesterman, W.: Writing Tools-The STYLE and DICTION 126programs, Computer Science Technical Report 91, Bell Laboratories, 127Murray Hill, N.J. (1981), republished as part of the 4.4BSD User's 128Supplementary Documents by O'Reilly. 129 130Strunk, William: The elements of style, Ithaca, N.Y.: Priv. print., 1918, 131@url{http://coba.shsu.edu/help/strunk/}. 132@c }}} 133@c {{{ Invoking 134@node Invoking 135@chapter Invoking @command{diction} 136 137@table @samp 138 139@item -b 140@itemx --beginner 141@opindex -b 142@opindex --beginner 143@cindex complain about typical mistakes of beginners 144Complain about mistakes typically made by beginners. 145 146@item -d 147@itemx --ignore-double-words 148@opindex -d 149@opindex --ignore-double-words 150@cindex do not complain about double words 151Ignore double words and do not complain about them. 152 153@item -s 154@itemx --suggest 155@opindex -s 156@opindex --suggest 157@cindex suggest better wording 158Suggest better wording, if any. 159 160@item -f @var{file} 161@itemx --file @var{file} 162@opindex -f 163@opindex --file 164@cindex user specified database 165Read the user specified database from the specified @var{file} in addition 166to the default database. 167 168@item -n 169@itemx --no-default-file 170@opindex -n 171@opindex --no-default-file 172@cindex not loading default database 173Do not read the default database, so only the user-specified database is used. 174 175@item -L @var{language} 176@itemx --language @var{language} 177@opindex -L 178@opindex --language 179@cindex set phrase file language 180Set the phrase file language. 181 182@item -h 183@itemx --help 184@opindex -h 185@opindex --help 186@cindex print usage message 187Print a short usage message. 188 189@itemx --version 190@opindex --version 191@cindex print version 192Print the version. 193 194@end table 195 196@section Environment Variables 197 198Diction's behaviour is affected by the following environment variables. 199@cindex environment variables 200 201@table @code 202 203@itemx LC_MESSAGES 204@vindex LC_MESSAGES 205@cindex language of messages 206@cindex message language 207@cindex national language support 208@cindex NLS 209@cindex translation of message language 210This variable specifies the @code{LC_MESSAGES} locale, which determines 211the language that @command{diction} uses for messages. American English 212is used if the environment variable is not set, or if the message catalog 213is not installed, or if @command{diction} was not compiled with national 214language support (@sc{nls}). The variable is further used as default 215for the phrase language. 216 217@end table 218 219@section Files 220 221@cindex files 222 223@table @code 224 225@itemx @DATADIR@/diction 226This directory contains phrase databases for various languages. 227 228@end table 229@c }}} 230@c {{{ Diagnostics 231@node Diagnostics 232@chapter Diagnostics 233 234If no errors occur, exit status is 0. On usage errors, 1 is returned. 235Termination caused by lack of memory is signalled by exit code 2. 236@c }}} 237@c {{{ Reporting Bugs 238@node Reporting Bugs 239@chapter Reporting Bugs 240 241If you find a bug in @command{diction}, please send electronic mail to 242@email{michael@@moria.de}. Include the version number, which you can find 243by running @command{diction --version}. Also include the hardware and 244operating system, the compiler used to compile `diction', a description 245of the bug behavior, and the input to `diction' that triggered the bug. 246@c }}} 247@c {{{ Author 248@c node Author 249@c chapter Author 250 251This program is GNU software, copyright 1997-2005 Michael Haardt 252@email{michael@@moria.de}. 253 254The english phrase file contains contributions by Greg Lindahl 255@email{lindahl@@pbm.com}, Wil Baden, Gary D. Kline, Kimberly Hanks and 256Beth Morris. 257 258This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify 259it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by 260the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or 261(at your option) any later version. 262 263This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, 264but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 265MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the 266GNU General Public License for more details. 267 268You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along 269with this program. If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 27059 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. 271@c }}} 272@c {{{ Concept Index 273@page 274@node Concept Index 275@unnumbered Concept Index 276 277This is a general index of all issues discussed in this manual, with the 278exception of the @command{diction} command-line options. 279 280@printindex cp 281@c }}} 282@c {{{ Index 283@page 284@node Index 285@unnumbered Index 286 287This is an alphabetical list of all @command{diction} command-line 288options and environment variables. 289 290@printindex fn 291 292@contents 293@c }}} 294@bye 295