Re: (doc/language help) resp?

[Trevor Bača]

On 5/12/06, Nicolas Sceaux <address@hidden> wrote:
> Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> writes:
>
> >> Sorry, it was a French-ism, where it looks like the Swedish way:
> >> "A, respectivement B, ..."
> >
> > In German we have the same: `A bzw. B' (where `bzw.' is short for
> > `beziehungsweise').
>
> Strange coincidence, I've made a peer review today on a spec written in
> English (by other French people), and added a comment:
>
>   "in case of a left (resp. right) key press..." is not correct English.

The word (and the abbreviation) certainly both exist in English, but I
think good usage dictates that the word show up only in cases where
the *order* of elements is critical, which is why we use it all the
time when writing math:

 http://www.emis.de/monographs/Trzeciak/glossae/respectively.html

But note that the examples on that page are *definitely* in the style
of mathematical writing.

More usual for normal stuff is:

 http://www.bartleby.com/68/27/5127.html

Mats's right that by far the most idiomatic in American English is "A
and B, respectively", usually because something earlier in the
sentence makes it critical to specify the order in which A and B
occur.



--
Trevor Bača
address@hidden