User talk:PatrickOfLondon

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Philippe Croizon
Hi. Why have you changed to past tense for the other world swim crossings in Philippe Croizon? The BBC ref says they will take place as does the website for that endeavour (in French, too many dead links to be added to Wikipedia yet). Please either provide a more up-to-date reference (you can see how to do that by looking at the sources) or restore the previous version.

No response from you so I have corrected the tenses. I will also have to correct the semicolons in the list of swims: semicolons are only used as a list separator if the list items themselves contain commas.

Where did you get your changed title for the intercontinental swim? The only significant Google hit is this updated article. I don't think we should invent a title for it. (There is also an Intercontinental Straits Relay which is something else). I will wait one day for a source from you before restoring the previous section title. --Mirokado (talk) 23:43, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Reply to Mirokado

Hi Mirokado, I have only just noticed your note addressed to me on the subject of Philippe Croizon. I don't spend a lot of time looking at my own talk page as I am an occasional, not assiduous, participant in editing Wikipedia pages. I seek to maintain high standards of English language in articles where I happen upon wording that could benefit from linguistic improvement.

Here are my comments on your observations.

(1) Changing of tense.

I haven't changed anything to the past tense. What I have done is take the view that, as we are dealing with announcements or reportage made in the past, about events that -- at the time of those announcements or reports -- had not and could not yet have taken place, those announcements and reports should themselves be reported in a manner that reflects their -- at the time of their making -- projected and intended, but uncertain, outcome.

Hence my changing "he will be accompanied..." to "in which he was to be accompanied...", and "the other swims will be across..." to "the other projected swims were to be..."

Similarly, as an abstract example, saying that "the launch will take place in 2015" -- a statement imbued with well-intentioned but ultimately non-guaranteeable certainty, made about a projected, future event which is, therefore, as yet uncertain -- is subtly different from "the launch is to take place in 2015", which conveys that the event is scheduled or intended to take place. Similarly, when M. Croizon announced his plans to swim the straits, he was indicating his intention at that time that that these events would take place in the future. That was his intention at the time he made the announcement -- and no doubt remains so at this time -- but no-one can be absolutely certain that the swims will take place: saying that the swims will take place is a prediction, not a factual statement.

The form of words "in which he was to be accompanied by" similarly reflects this modality. You might like to have a look at, for example, http://grammar.about.com/od/mo/g/modalityterm.htm to see how this concept (of the association of probability and tense) is treated in English.

(2) Changed title for the intercontinental swim.

This change was made because I think the previous heading was "World swim". That might be taken to imply that he is swimming round the world. In fact the intended swims -- themselves extremely laudable and heroic -- are between continents, but not all over the world. The term intercontinental is hence, I think, entirely defensible.

(3) Use of semicolons as list separators

It is appropriate to use semicolons if the list elements themselves are multi-worded, or contain commas. There isn't a hard rule about it (and Microsoft Excel is not the arbitrator on this) but multi-word elements are more clearly separated by semicolons than by commas. You might like to have a look at http://changingminds.org/techniques/language/punctuation/semicolon.htm

Regards, PatrickOfLondon (talk) 14:18, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

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