On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Ralph Droms <[email protected]> wrote: > > On May 16, 2012, at 10:22 PM 5/16/12, Ned Freed wrote: > >> >>> On May 16, 2012, at 5:22 PM 5/16/12, [email protected] wrote: >> >>>>>> The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", >>>>>> "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this >>>>>> document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119] when they >>>>>> appear in ALL CAPS. These words may also appear in this document in >>>>>> lower case as plain English words, absent their normative meanings. >>>> >>>>> i like this a lot >>>> >>>> I agree. In fact I just incorporated it into the media types registration >>>> update. >> >>> To be sure of meaning and help confusion avoidance, I would prefer that the >>> key words not appear in the document in lower case and that authors use the >>> suggested replacement words (or break out the thesaurus?). >> >> Preferring it is one thing; I'm OK with that. Making it some sort of >> hard-and-fast rule is another matter entirely. We have too many of those >> as it is. > > Well, here's another example of imprecision in the written word. What I > meant is that my preference would be a requirement that RFC 2119 key words > not appear in lower case at all. > > Seems to me that precision of meaning overrides graceful use of the language. > Making the requirement something like "RFC 2119 key words SHOULD NOT appear > in lower case unless the lower case usage is clearly non-normative" means we > have to think a lot harder about some details and (AD hat and reading glasses > firmly in place) we have enough details to think about already. So, I > recommend an errata to RFC 2119: "These words MUST NOT appear in a document > in lower case."
...except in a direct quote of another document. Regards Marshall > > - Ralph > >> >> Ned >
