Re: BUG #16939: Plural interval for negative singular

Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 04:57:26AM -0700, Noah Misch wrote:
>> Let's not change from one popular spelling to another when doing so creates a
>> compatibility hazard. That is to say, I think PostgreSQL would be better with
>> this patch reverted.
>>
>> If we did want to standardize on singular for -1, EVALUATE_MESSAGE_PLURAL()
>> would be a key bit of code to change.

> Oh, good point. I think we should just pick one and be consistent --- I
> don't care which we choose.

I agree with Noah's opinion that we should stick to the historical
behavior in the interval I/O functions. There is not enough solidity
in the "this is grammatically wrong" argument to justify taking any
risk of application breakage, and it seems like there is some risk of
that there.

For the sorts of human-readable messages that EVALUATE_MESSAGE_PLURAL
tends to be used for, I don't think there's a reason to worry that
we might break applications if we change it. So I don't have a
strong opinion about what to do there. Still, by the same token
that the grammatical argument is weak, I lean towards not spending
effort on changing it.

regards, tom lane