English term
The information is public domain
| 4 +8 | Yes |
Terry Richards
|
| 4 +5 | No |
Joanna Carroll
|
Nov 20, 2017 08:26: jyuan_us changed "Language pair" from "Chinese to English" to "English"
Non-PRO (1): Yvonne Gallagher
When entering new questions, KudoZ askers are given an opportunity* to classify the difficulty of their questions as 'easy' or 'pro'. If you feel a question marked 'easy' should actually be marked 'pro', and if you have earned more than 20 KudoZ points, you can click the "Vote PRO" button to recommend that change.
How to tell the difference between "easy" and "pro" questions:
An easy question is one that any bilingual person would be able to answer correctly. (Or in the case of monolingual questions, an easy question is one that any native speaker of the language would be able to answer correctly.)
A pro question is anything else... in other words, any question that requires knowledge or skills that are specialized (even slightly).
Another way to think of the difficulty levels is this: an easy question is one that deals with everyday conversation. A pro question is anything else.
When deciding between easy and pro, err on the side of pro. Most questions will be pro.
* Note: non-member askers are not given the option of entering 'pro' questions; the only way for their questions to be classified as 'pro' is for a ProZ.com member or members to re-classify it.
Responses
France
30 years in IT, Engineering degree.
Native in: English (Variants: UK, US, British) 
Works in: French to English, English
Yes
To be even more picky, to be a correct sentence, it needs a full stop (US: period) at the end!
| agree |
Charles Davis
: Yes, adjectival use of "public domain" is well established and listed in dictionaries. "In the public domain" is more formal, but the question was whether it's correct (it is), not whether it's informal (arguably it is).
44 mins
|
| agree |
writeaway
: This is not wrong in any case
49 mins
|
| agree |
Björn Vrooman
: "becomes public domain" http://lam.alaska.gov/freemultimedia / "is public domain": https://open.fda.gov/terms Cf http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/public domain No error. // RE below: Snarky comments aren't necessary.
55 mins
|
| agree |
B D Finch
: It's not pretty, but it's no longer wrong.
1 hr
|
| agree |
Herbmione Granger
: To me it is even unnatural to say "in the public domain" when conveying that information is available to the public.
1 hr
|
| agree |
James A. Walsh
2 hrs
|
| neutral |
philgoddard
: Maybe in speech, but not in good writing.
5 hrs
|
| agree |
acetran
7 hrs
|
| agree |
Robert Forstag
: Not incorrect, but also not preferable.
9 hrs
|
| neutral |
Daryo
: "you are car" instead of "you are in a car" makes sense?
1 day 23 hrs
|
|
No, but "car seat" does. If you Google "public domain information" it will get you a 1/4 million hits and "public domain software" will get you another 1/4 million. From this we may reasonably assume that "public domain" has crossed over to adjective use.
|
No
It seems that sometimes phrases "It's in the public domain" and "It's public knowledge" may get conflated resulting in this error. Of course it's not a serious error but if you're looking for correctness use "in the public domain", I'd say :)
| agree |
Yvonne Gallagher
: not an error as such but the option I'd use
1 min
|
|
Thanks very much :)
|
|
| agree |
Jack Doughty
23 mins
|
| neutral |
B D Finch
: I don't like it either, but I think that it is now (unfortunately) considered a correct alternative to the better option of "in the public domain".
42 mins
|
| neutral |
Charles Davis
: I definitely prefer this, but adjectival use of "public domain" is well established and listed in dictionaries (including Collins). It's usually attributive but also used predicatively like this. So I don't think it can actually be called incorrect.
44 mins
|
| agree |
philgoddard
4 hrs
|
| agree |
Patricia Fierro, M. Sc.
5 hrs
|
| agree |
Daryo
: makes perfect sense// the "public domain" is a kind of space (real/tangible or virtual) and you are either "in" or "out" of it [literally or figuratively].
7 hrs
|
Reference comments
fwiw, hth
https://archive.angus.gov.uk/contracts/FreedomofInformation....
The information is public domain and may not be re-sold or re-used for any commercial purpose. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the ...
Government Sites - Finding Open Access Images - Guides at Penn ...
https://guides.library.upenn.edu › ... › Finding Open Access Images
Jul 27, 2017 - You may add a number of layers relating to biology, people, government, and many other categories. Save and share the maps you create. Most information on the site is public domain, but there may be some copyrighted material on the USGS' pages. All information is public domain unless otherwise stated.
| agree |
Björn Vrooman
: Yes, aside from M-W and Random House, there are numerous (!) .gov pages that you could cite as examples. This isn't an error.
10 mins
|
Discussion