@ferdinand said in A few items that should get fixed on the Python side:

Hey @mikegold10,

..., the word "of" does not in any way indicate ownership, [...]

It does, of is a possessive preposition, in is a relative preposition, specifically one that denotes a place. See here for an overview of the subject. I would not even challenge the fact that for you and your peers of might sound more natural (or maybe even all native speakers as you claim).

But language in general, and especially things like prepositions, pronouns, and flexions, is subject to language change which is often highly regional, so what people consider correct can vary regionally. As indicated in my first answer, prepositions are quite interchangeable, and if the text would have said of instead of in, I would not waste any time on changing that. But in the same notion, I cannot change the preposition on what you subjectively consider better. The grammatical situation from a Standard English point of view seems obvious here and personal preference cannot be grounds for a change. I am more than happy to change the preposition when you can demonstrate with a respectable English style guide like Oxford English that it would be more common to use here of. But that seems unlikely to me.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

As additional supportive evidence for my proposed change, I am providing a link to a respected source for the definitions of American English words, including many sample phrases that provide context for the often huge set of alternative definitions that are provided for commonly used words like "of" (and "in"):

Meriam-Webster Dictionary: of - Definition / preposition

Specifically, under the definitions of the word "of," when used as a preposition (i.e., Section 1 of 3 on the page, as linked above), please examine the following alternative definitions and examples of proper English usage that I believe are of relevance to my proposed change to the original Python comment:

a, c, and e a and b b

Here is a copy of the original comment to provide context:

The index of the first and last selected elements in the given segment.

..., and the revised version that replaces the preposition in with of::

The index of the first and last selected elements of the given segment.

Of course the decision is yours to make. I am simply trying to "open your mind" to, as well as provide objective evidence for, an alternative phrasing which I perceive to be a better fit for the technical subject matter that is being documented, within the framework of modern American English usage patterns. I have to concede on the fact that this is ultimately subjective and may (or may not - not sure) be specific to the en_US locale.

Michael

Where to report a bug?