Re: RFC 2119 terms, ALL CAPS vs lower case

On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Ralph Droms 
<rdroms(_dot_)ietf(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
> On May 16, 2012, at 10:22 PM 5/16/12, Ned Freed wrote:
>
> > > On May 16, 2012, at 5:22 PM 5/16/12, 
> > > ned+ietf(_at_)mauve(_dot_)mrochek(_dot_)com wrote:
> > > > > >  The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
> > > > > >  "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
> > > > > >  document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119] when they
> > > > > >  appear in ALL CAPS.  These words may also appear in this document in
> > > > > >  lower case as plain English words, absent their normative meanings.
> > > > > i like this a lot
> > > > I agree. In fact I just incorporated it into the media types registration
> > > > update.
> > > To be sure of meaning and help confusion avoidance, I would prefer that the
> > > key words not appear in the document in lower case and that authors use the
> > > suggested replacement words (or break out the thesaurus?).
> > Preferring it is one thing; I'm OK with that. Making it some sort of
> > hard-and-fast rule is another matter entirely. We have too many of those
> > as it is.
> Well, here's another example of imprecision in the written word.  What I 
> meant is that my preference would be a requirement that RFC 2119 key words 
> not appear in lower case at all.
>
> Seems to me that precision of meaning overrides graceful use of the language. 
>  Making the requirement something like "RFC 2119 key words SHOULD NOT appear 
> in lower case unless the lower case usage is clearly non-normative" means we 
> have to think a lot harder about some details and (AD hat and reading glasses 
> firmly in place) we have enough details to think about already.  So, I 
> recommend an errata to RFC 2119: "These words MUST NOT appear in a document 
> in lower case."
...except in a direct quote of another document.

Regards
Marshall

> - Ralph
>
> >                               Ned