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@setfilename diction.info
@settitle diction, print wordy and commonly misused phrases in sentences

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@direntry
* diction: (diction).           print wordy and commonly misused phrases in sentences.
@end direntry
This file documents @command{diction}, a program to print wordy and
commonly misused phrases in sentences.

Published by the Free Software Foundation,
59 Temple Place - Suite 330
Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA

Copyright 1997-2007 Michael Haardt

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual
into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions,
except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved
by Michael Haardt.
@end ifinfo

@setchapternewpage off
@c }}}
@c {{{ Title page
@titlepage 
@title diction, print wordy and commonly misused phrases in sentences
@subtitle version @VERSION@, @UPDATED@
@author Michael Haardt

@page
@vskip 0pt plus 1filll
Copyright @copyright{} 1997-2007 Michael Haardt

@sp 2
Published by the Free Software Foundation, @*
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, @*
Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual
into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions,
except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved
by Michael Haardt.

@end titlepage
@c }}}
@c {{{ Overview
@page 
@ifnottex
@node Top
@top Diction

@command{diction} prints wordy and commonly misused phrases in sentences.

This document was produced for version @VERSION@ of @sc{gnu}
@command{diction}.
@end ifnottex

@menu
* Introduction::                Introduction.
* Invoking::                    Invoking @command{diction}; description of options.
* Diagnostics::                 Exit status returned by @command{diction}.
* Reporting Bugs::              Reporting Bugs.
* Concept Index::               A menu with all the topics in this manual.
* Index::                       A menu with all @command{diction} commands
                                and command-line options.
@end menu
@c }}}
@c {{{ Introduction
@node Introduction 
@chapter Introduction

@command{diction} finds all sentences in a document that contain
phrases from a database of frequently misused, bad or wordy diction.
It further checks for double words.  If no files are given, the document
is read from standard input.  Each found phrase is enclosed in @code{[ ]}
(brackets).  Suggestions and advice, if any, are printed headed by a right
arrow @code{->}.  A sentence is a sequence of words, that starts with a
capitalised word and ends with a full stop, double colon, question mark
or exclaimation mark.  A single letter followed by a dot is considered an
abbreviation, so it does not terminate a sentence.  Various multi-letter
abbreviations are recognized, they do not terminate a sentence as well,
neither do fractional numbers.

@command{diction} understands @command{cpp} @code{#line} lines for being
able to give precise locations when printing sentences.

There has been a diction command on old UNIX systems, which is now part
of the AT&T DWB package.  The original version was bound to roff by
enforcing a call to @command{deroff}.  This version is a reimplementation
and must run in a pipe with @command{deroff} if you want to process
roff documents.  Similarly, you can run it in a pipe with @command{dehtml}
or @command{detex} to process HTML or TeX documents.

See also:

Cherry, L.L.; Vesterman, W.: Writing Tools-The STYLE and DICTION
programs, Computer Science Technical Report 91, Bell Laboratories,
Murray Hill, N.J. (1981), republished as part of the 4.4BSD User's
Supplementary Documents by O'Reilly.

Strunk, William: The elements of style, Ithaca, N.Y.: Priv. print., 1918,
@url{http://coba.shsu.edu/help/strunk/}.
@c }}}
@c {{{ Invoking
@node Invoking 
@chapter Invoking @command{diction}

@table @samp

@item -b
@itemx --beginner
@opindex -b
@opindex --beginner
@cindex complain about typical mistakes of beginners
Complain about mistakes typically made by beginners.

@item -d
@itemx --ignore-double-words
@opindex -d
@opindex --ignore-double-words
@cindex do not complain about double words
Ignore double words and do not complain about them.

@item -s
@itemx --suggest
@opindex -s
@opindex --suggest
@cindex suggest better wording
Suggest better wording, if any.

@item -f @var{file}
@itemx --file @var{file}
@opindex -f
@opindex --file
@cindex user specified database
Read the user specified database from the specified @var{file} in addition
to the default database.

@item -n
@itemx --no-default-file
@opindex -n
@opindex --no-default-file
@cindex not loading default database
Do not read the default database, so only the user-specified database is used.

@item -L @var{language}
@itemx --language @var{language}
@opindex -L
@opindex --language
@cindex set phrase file language
Set the phrase file language.

@item -h
@itemx --help
@opindex -h
@opindex --help
@cindex print usage message
Print a short usage message.

@itemx --version
@opindex --version
@cindex print version
Print the version.

@end table

@section Environment Variables

Diction's behaviour is affected by the following environment variables.
@cindex environment variables

@table @code

@itemx LC_MESSAGES
@vindex LC_MESSAGES
@cindex language of messages
@cindex message language
@cindex national language support
@cindex NLS
@cindex translation of message language
This variable specifies the @code{LC_MESSAGES} locale, which determines
the language that @command{diction} uses for messages.  American English
is used if the environment variable is not set, or if the message catalog
is not installed, or if @command{diction} was not compiled with national
language support (@sc{nls}).  The variable is further used as default
for the phrase language.

@end table

@section Files

@cindex files

@table @code

@itemx @DATADIR@/diction
This directory contains phrase databases for various languages.

@end table
@c }}}
@c {{{ Diagnostics
@node Diagnostics 
@chapter Diagnostics

If no errors occur, exit status is 0.  On usage errors, 1 is returned.
Termination caused by lack of memory is signalled by exit code 2.
@c }}}
@c {{{ Reporting Bugs
@node Reporting Bugs
@chapter Reporting Bugs

If you find a bug in @command{diction}, please send electronic mail to
@email{michael@@moria.de}.  Include the version number, which you can find
by running @command{diction --version}.  Also include the hardware and
operating system, the compiler used to compile `diction', a description
of the bug behavior, and the input to `diction' that triggered the bug.
@c }}}
@c {{{ Author
@c node Author
@c chapter Author

This program is GNU software, copyright 1997-2005 Michael Haardt
@email{michael@@moria.de}.

The english phrase file contains contributions by Greg Lindahl
@email{lindahl@@pbm.com}, Wil Baden, Gary D. Kline, Kimberly Hanks and
Beth Morris.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program.  If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
@c }}}
@c {{{ Concept Index
@page
@node Concept Index 
@unnumbered Concept Index

This is a general index of all issues discussed in this manual, with the
exception of the @command{diction} command-line options.

@printindex cp
@c }}}
@c {{{ Index
@page
@node Index 
@unnumbered Index

This is an alphabetical list of all @command{diction} command-line
options and environment variables.

@printindex fn

@contents
@c }}}
@bye