Deathless prose

[fanf]

I'm preparing a document that gives advice on sending email from within Cambridge University. The aim is to correct some confusion about the difference between our message submission server and our smart host, which has not mattered much in the past but will when we disable unauthenticated access to the former. I'm also documenting the forthcoming rate limiting restrictions.

Any comments or questions are welcomed. It'll be announced properly in due course...

http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~fanf2/hermes/doc/misc/sending-from-cudn.txt

Comments

[techiebloke.livejournal.com]

I think you mean 2822-speak; rfc 822 talks about "the headers".

What can I say? I'm old fashioned.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Look closer. You'll find loads of references to header fields in 822.

[(Anonymous)]

RFC 822 does not speak about one header with many header fields. It always uses the term "header field" as the singular and either "header fields" or "headers" as the plural. I can find no reference to "the header" of a message, and many to the "the headers" of a message.

See, for example, the opening paragraph of section 3.1.

For the record, I think this is an amusing discussion that is irrelevant to Tony's document: "a header" rather than "the header" is a friendlier term for a document aimed at non-pedants; but if the document is aimed at those with an eye for detail then 2822 makes your position unassailable.