typo in manual first paragraph

[Tom Judge]

Perspective note: My reply is interpretation of someone who was taught
en_UK rather than en_US.

On 12/03/2010 11:51 AM, Jason Helfman wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 02, 2010 at 08:41:35PM -0700, Warren Block thus spake:
>> On Thu, 2 Dec 2010, John Baldwin wrote:
>>
>>> On Thursday, December 02, 2010 3:37:16 am Sergey Kandaurov wrote:
>>>> On 2 December 2010 06:14, John McCall <biomedsoftware at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> I think you mean "broad"..........not  board
>>>>>
>>>>> ............"Working through this section requires little more than
>>>>> the
>>>>> desire to explore, and the ability to take on board new concepts as
>>>>> they are
>>>>> introduced.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not a native speaker, but "take on board" in this context
>>>> stands for me as "understand, take in mind, accept smth.".
>>>
>>> I agree, but given that it is a bit idiomatic and confusing, it might
>>> be best
>>> to reword the sentence.  I would say s/take on board/tackle/, but I'm
>>> not
>>> sure 'tackle' is any less confusing.  I do find the current wording a
>>> bit
>>> awkard, but 'take on board' is a bit 'stronger' than simply
>>> 'understand' as
>>> it implies that the task requires some work (e.g. taking on a new
>>> task at a
>>> job).  Maybe 'embrace' would work.
>>
>> The original is confusing because "take on" and "on board" conflict.
> 

I'm not sure how the terms conflict to "take on board" is a perfectly
valid construct and used in day to day life.

I.e: I hope you take on board what we have spoken about in this meeting.

> Insert humble opinion:
> 
> I've brought this up on #bsdports, but I will relay it here. I would say
> "take on" vs. "take on board" isn't an issue of  conflict. However,
> "take on board" adds no additional clarity to the phrase "take on". 

I'm not sure I agree with this issue of clarity.  For one the meaning of
"take on" and "take on board" are very different.  These would be
defined in en_UK as:

take on - To over come an issue - http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/take_on

take on board - To learn about the topic being discussed. -
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/take_on_board

> This is how I would re-word it:
> 
> "Working through this section requires little more than a desire to
> explore,
> and ability to take on new concepts as they are introduced."
> 

If we are going to complete the disambiguation of this I would use:

"Working through this section requires no more than a desire to explore
new things, and the ability to take on new concepts as they are introduced."

Tom

-- 
TJU13-ARIN