Justin B Rye writes: > >> appointed to the post of FTP Assistant; congratulations, Ansgar!
> > but I never heard the word "post" that way in English. Executive summary: "Post," as used by Justin, is perfectly good English, at least in the US. > I'm the one who put it there, so I don't count as confirmation. To > me it's valid but has the possible disadvantage that it tends to > imply uniqueness (there's only one FTP Assistant, and that's the post > Ansgar was appointed to). Maybe I should have gone for "position"? > "Role"? Or (with a minor reshuffle) "duties"? None of these seem > like clear improvements, though. My understanding is that by definition a *post* is an assignment of title, responsibilities, and authority to carry out those responsibilities. To me it connotes an administrative assignment of indeterminate length but nonpermanent, with no contractual renegotiation: the change in duties is in some sense already part of the "contract" the individual has with the organization. I think it's a perfectly good word to use for the case where a Debian Developer is formally assigned certain responsibilities, along with a title. My dialect does not include the connotation of uniqueness Justin mentions. That may just be me, though. In a related issue, to me the word "position" is inappropriate, as a person generally has a unique position, both in space and in an organization. There is a title assigned, so "duties" is not as precise. One can carry out the duties without the title. "Role" might be a better word in the context of Debian, where the organization is relatively informal and flexible. I would tend to go with "post" here, though. Recently "role" has come to connote assignment of responsibility as well as specific tasks, but that connotation is stronger in the case of "post". It also seems that here the assignment is rather formal, but one can "assume a role" unilaterally, without a formal appointment. Sorry for the long post, but discussing language is inherently wordy. HTH -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-i18n-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87bp03osqu....@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
