LC_MESSAGES=de|en|nl
specifies the message language and is also used as default for the phrase language. The default language is en.
diction1
Print wordy and commonly misused phrases in sentences
Usage
diction [-b]
[-d]
[-f
file
[{-n | -L
language}]]
[file ...]
diction [--beginner]
[--ignore-double-words]
[--file
file
[{--no-default-file | --language
language}]]
[file ...]
diction {-h | --help}
diction --version
Overview
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 [ ] (brackets). Suggestions and advice, if any and if asked for, are printed headed by a right arrow ->. 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.
Diction understands cpp(1) #line lines for being able to give precise locations when printing sentences.
Options
-
-b, --beginner -
Complain about mistakes typically made by beginners.
-
-d, --ignore-double-words -
Ignore double words and do not complain about them.
-
-s, --suggest -
Suggest better wording, if any.
-
-f file, --file file -
Read the user specified database from the specified file in addition to the default database.
-
-n, --no-default-file -
Do not read the default database, so only the user-specified database is used.
-
-L language, --language language -
Set the phrase file language (de,
en,nl).
-
-h, --help -
Print a short usage message.
-
--version -
Print the version.
Errors
On usage errors, 1 is returned. Termination caused by lack of memory is signalled by exit code 2.
Examples
The following example first removes all roff constructs and headers from a document and feeds the result to diction with a German database:
deroff -s file.mm | diction -L de | fmt
Environment
Files
${prefix}/share/diction/* databases for various languages
The file consists of lines, one per entry. Each line is divided by one or two tabs into two parts: Left is the text to match and right is the suggestion. The text to match either starts with a space to match a full word or with letters to match suffixes. If it ends with a tilde, it matches a prefix.
The suggestion may be empty to mark fill words, contain an explanation or start with an equal sign followed by text to match for referring to the explanation of that text. The right part can consist of an exclamation mark to mark exceptions that should not be matched.
If both parts are separated by two tabs, then this entry concerns mistakes typically made by beginners.
Empty lines or lines starting with a hash are ignored.
Releases
14 releases since Debian 2.1 (Slink); the text changed 6 times.
--beginner since Debian 4.0 (Etch);
--ignore-double-words since Debian 4.0 (Etch);
--suggest since Debian 4.0 (Etch);
-b since Debian 4.0 (Etch);
-d since Debian 4.0 (Etch);
-s since Debian 4.0 (Etch).