Date:    Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:22:08 -0500
<br>From:    Mark Mandel <Mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DRAGONSYS.COM>
<br>Subject: other Xs than Y
<br>
<br>Andrea Vine <Andrea.Vine[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ENG.SUN.COM> asks:
<br> >>>
<br>
<br>I am slogging through email standards documents at the moment.  Twice in the
<br> same document (RFC 2046, for those of
<br>you who're interested) I have found the construction "other blah-blahs than
<br> foobar ..."  In both encounters, I had a bit of
<br>difficulty parsing the phrase, and so had to re-read it several times.
<br>Finally I inserted an additional "other" to appease my linguistic processor; the
<br> actual phrases now read:
<br>
<br>>  For other subtypes of "text" {other} than "text/plain", the semantics
<br>> of the charset parameter should be defined to be identical to those
<br>> specified here for "text/plain", ...
<br>
<br>> Other media types {other} than subtypes of "text" might choose to
<br>> employ the charset parameter as defined here, but...
<br>
<br>        [I have re-marked the quoted text with marginal ">" and circumpended
<br>         {} around the "other"s that I infer Andrea inserted. -- MAM]
<br>
<br>(Doesn't this make you want to run out and get yourself a whole mess o'
<br> standards docs?)  Anyway, I'm wondering if
<br>the original construction is proper, grammatically speaking; is "other than" a
<br> separable construction?  Certainly it is
<br>difficult for me to parse.  Personally I would have omitted the first "other" in
<br> both cases, but the standard was already
<br>finalized before I ever set my eyes on it (and they're rolling around with great
<br> abandon there!)
<br>
<br>Andrea Vine
<br>Software i18n consultant
<br> <<<
<br>
<br>I've seen "other Xs than Y" fairly often and don't recall having any trouble
<br> with it -- well, maybe the first time I saw it, but I
<br>have long since considered it analogous to, say, "a {different / newer} coat
<br> than the one he was wearing yesterday". In
<br>fact, I boggled at Andrea's doubling of "other": it seems redundant it ;-)\  .
<br>
<br>By the way, I would have been *totally* baffled by "i18n" in Andrea's job title
<br> if I hadn't already crashed into it where I
<br>work. I am told that it stands for "internationalization" ("i" + 18 letters +
<br> "n"), and, I think, "i14e" for "internationalize" by the
<br>same principle, these being two extremely long-to-type words (howsoever
<br> trippingly they may roll off the tongue) that
<br>are in heavy use among those whose jobs involve them.
<br>
<br>       Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com
<br>    Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 796-0267
<br> 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/
<br>           Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/
<br>