[linux-cifs-client] updated mount.cifs man page

[Steven French]

Martin,
Thanks for the feedback I will make most of these changes.

> If the word already ends in s, then no s follows the apostrophe, I think.

This brings back very fun memories.  I finished my CS degree early so I had
time and took extra English literature courses in University ... so if
Computers ever go out of style I have other options :)

I remember one phenomenal book, the once standard book on English writing,
"The Elements of Style," which addresses this very question on page one
(probably because it is the most common counter-intuitive style error in
common written English).  It decrees:

      Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's.   Follow this
rule
      whatever the final consonant.  Thus write,

            Charles's friend
            Burns's poems
            the witch's malice

      Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names ...

In the introduction they quote an example from a famous newspaper headline
of the Times which got the same thing wrong too.   The test is if "Windows"
is a single thing (an operating system, or class of operating systems,
rather than an assortment of portals with glass in them on the front and
sides of a building). If it is singular then it gets  's  no matter whether
it ends in s.   Of course for clarity the best strategy is to remove all
doubt by rewording the sentence.

For those who love precision in language, and computer scientists are often
among those who love precision, I highly recommend that still classic
little book: "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White.  I know of no
better book of its type.  But I must confess that I break his simply
stated, clear rules dozens of times each day in writing (and since there
are only about 40 rules this can be embarrassing ...).  This book is so
good, so small - I wish people wrote programming manuals as clearly
(although K&R was close) as those two geniuses wrote the standard 57 (!)
page manual for written English.





Steve French
Senior Software Engineer
Linux Technology Center - IBM Austin
phone: 512-838-2294
email: sfrench at-sign us dot ibm dot com
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