Lawrence Garvin (1:106/6018) wrote to Steven Horn at 18:34 on 17 Sep 2002:

 SH> "Beginning with a few friends in the United States exchanging
 SH> messages in 1984, FidoNet has grown into a global network."


 LG> Grammatical change... and voice change...

 LG> "Fidonet began in 1984 with a few friends in the United States
 LG> exchanging messages and has grown into a global network."

 LG> All of the former suggestions were written in passive voice. I much
 LG> prefer the active voice.

Only in part.  "Fidonet has grown into a global network" is
active.  And the use of the passive voice for communicating historical
information is perfectly acceptable.

 LG> Also, the adjective phrase "in 1984" belongs adjacent to the
 LG> word(s) it is modifying.

Note that what I wrote was in mixed voice.  Also note that what happened in
1984 was the exchange of messages so "in 1984" was next to the
words it was modifying.  In addition, note that the message exchange may
have been the genesis of Fidonet but did not in itself create a network. 
Fidonet did not become a network until the first node list appeared which
means that one should be looking at 1985 for the network's creation.

But no one would care much about Fidonet's origin other than Tom Jennings
and he dropped out years ago.
 
Take care,

Steven Horn (steven_a_horn{at}yahoo.ca)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT 
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+