Re: [needs proofread & translation] July newsletter

Thank you, Luca, for your speedy and helpful work on my proofreading.

I have taken your .xhtml attachment, and I now see -- and I hope that I
will remember -- that at least on the notebook running Microsoft Windows
(ugh!) that I am using away from home I can use LibreOffice to see it fully
displayed.  I find the fully displayed version much more comfortable to
proofread, and it may actually help me to find more suggestions to make
when I am not spending much of my time ignoring the markup language.

So I am proofreading using LibreOffice.  I am also attaching my .odt
version of that file that reflects the suggestions I am now making.

I am not using the webpreview that you also so kindly sent.  That is
inherently a moving target, and I do not have the time in the middle of my
night to deal with moving target issues.  I will be spending enough time
first responding to you and then proofreading.

My responses to what you wrote are interspersed, below my new suggestions.

1.  "Learn more about the latest developments surrounding the Digital
Markets Act and take a few minutes to share your perspective in our
Interoperability Survey, and listen to the newest episode of our podcast."
  Replace the first occurrence of "and" (after "Act") with a comma.  This
is the normal way to punctuate a list of three items.  I can see no reason
for abnormality here, although deliberate abnormality can be desirable.

2.  Table of Contents:  "From the stages to your screen: videos from the
last conferences"  I suggest replacing "last" with "latest."  If these were
the last conferences ever to be held, "last" would be correct.  Since we
all hope that there will be more, I think that "latest" is better, although
in this specific case "last" is not incorrect.  My #4, below, is consistent
with this suggestion.  (I regularly suggest replacing "last" with
"latest."  English usage is inconsistent.  We do say "last Wednesday" and
"last year."  To quote the analysis of "last/latest" in the fourth edition
of Fowler's Modern English Usage [2015], "It is obvious, therefore, that if
there is any danger of contextual ambiguity some word other than *last *should
be used."  Here, ambiguity is not really a problem, but I still prefer
"latest.")

If you have read this far, let me make an offer that I have made
occasionally to the FSFE translators.  I will be delighted to send any of
you a copy of this valuable reference work if you will send me your
address.  I find it sufficiently useful -- as in this instance -- that I
brought one of my copies along on a five-week vacation trip because I
expected to do some proofreading for the FSFE.

3.  This is not an issue in the text of the newsletter, but in the markup
language.  "in Danish in<br/>both the book and the movie."  The "<br/>"
should be replaced by a text space.  I do not know where the  "<br/>" comes
from, or what it means.

4.  Heading:  "From the stages to your screen: videos from the last
conferences"   I suggest replacing "last" with "latest." This is consistent
with my #2 above.

5.  Caption:  "The FSFE team and volunteers during Summer Meeting 2025 at
the Software Freedom Flat terrace"  Replace "during Summer Meeting 2025 at
the Software Freedom Flat terrace" with  "at the Software Freedom Flat
terrace during Summer Meeting 2025".  As it stands, this indicates that the
summer meeting took place entirely on the terrace.

On Mon, Jul 7, 2025 at 3:08 PM Luca Bonissi <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hello Richard!
>
> Many thanks for proofreading the July newsletter!
>
> Mostly of the changes you suggested were updated in webpreview (reverted
> English version...). You can see differences from the following link
> (unfortunately, ALT are not diff-ed, but you see them by moving the
> mouse cursor over the image):
>
> https://webpreview.fsfe.org/cgi/fsfe.pl?pad=1494&diff=1/0
>
> XHTML source file attached. If you prefer, you can also update directly
> the text in webpreview by clicking on "Proofread/Translate" and then
> "EDIT current review" (the text will be automatically saved every minute).
>
> I highlight relevant changes and/or doubt:
>
> On 07/07/25 07:20, Richard L. Schmeidler wrote:
> > 1.  Alt text of first picture:  "Collage of pictures showing a team
> > picure with FSFE volunteers"  Replace "picure" with "picture."
>
> Thanks for spotting the typo. Fixed also in the ALT text of the last
> <image/> tag (thumbnail picture)
>
> > 5.  Alt text of second picture:  "White men posing showing Ada and
> > Zangemann in Danish."
> >
> > (a)  I assume that you have some reason for specifying that the men
> > are all White men, so I am not suggesting changing that, although --
> > especially in a Scandinavian context -- it seems unnecessary to me to
> > specify their racial identity.
>
> Also from my point of view specifying "White" seems unnecessary and - at
> least in Italian translation - it sounds very strange... Maybe it is
> better to remove "White", but I left it in the text.

You and I are in agreement, but the decision is up to Ana.

>
> > 8.  "followed by a Q&A and debate with the author, FSFE president
> > Matthias Kirschner.The book was officially published"
> >
> > (a)  This is not a suggestion or an objection, but I am curious what
> > the debate was about.  Was it about the efficacy of grass-roots
> > activism?  Was it about the young age of the protagonist?  Something
> > else?  Also, a debate is a very formal kind of a discussion.  Who took
> > the role of disagreeing with the President of the FSFE on this
> > celebratory occasion?
>
> I don't know... maybe "debate" should be replaced with "discussion"?

I wasn't there.  Whether it was a debate -- a very formal and adversarial
discussion -- is again up to Ana.

>
> > 10.  "as well as amazing food and Italian home-made ice cream!"  I am
> > not suggesting any changes, but there are several nuances of English
> > (or at least my US English) usage that I want to point out here.
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > Similarly, the positioning of "Italian" before "homemade" rather than
> > before "ice cream" suggests that this ice cream was made in an Italian
> > home (not, for example, in the home of an Italian living in Germany)
> > rather than being ice cream in the Italian style.
>
> The ice-cream was made in my Italian home and transported to Berlin with
> my electric car that provided 230 V AC to the freezer during the trip.
>
> So, placing "Italian" before "homemade" is correct in this context :-)

Thank you.  I thought that might be the case.  And thank you for the work
you put in on the ice cream.
>
>
> Many thanks again!
>    Luca
>
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determine whether or not they are genuine." -- Abraham Lincoln

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