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Kevin McLauchlan reported that a reviewer objected to "You might wish to
deliver the product in un-initialized state.", and requested that the
article "an" be inserted before uninitialized.
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In a later comment, Wanda Phillips changed the sentence to, "deliver the
product in the un-initialized state."
Perhaps what the reviewer was objecting to was the absence of an article
before "un-initialized". One reason we are advised to read our text out loud
is that we (native speakers at least) tend to insert articles to improve the
flow and pronouncability of what we are saying. Perhaps all the quibbles
about initialized vs unintialized vs un-initialized were not the problem at
all. Euphony was. The original sentence with all the 'ins" and "uns" was
difficult to read without an intervening article. "The" does that without
introducing indefiniteness.
Margaret Cekis, Johns Creek GA
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