docs: minor polish

- "an HTTP*" (not "a")
- remove a few contractions
- remove a spurious "a"
- reduce use of "I" in texts

Closes #11040

docs/CODE_STYLE.md

@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ resolution screens:
    newspapers have used columns for decades or centuries.
 
 2. Narrower columns allow developers to easier show multiple pieces of code
-   next to each other in different windows. I often have two or three source
+   next to each other in different windows. It allows two or three source
    code windows next to each other on the same screen - as well as multiple
    terminal and debugging windows.
 

docs/CONNECTION-FILTERS.md

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Curl_easy *data         connectdata *conn        cf-ssl        cf-socket
 
 While connection filters all do different things, they look the same from the "outside". The code in `data` and `conn` does not really know **which** filters are installed. `conn` just writes into the first filter, whatever that is.
 
-Same is true for filters. Each filter has a pointer to the `next` filter. When SSL has encrypted the data, it does not write to a socket, it writes to the next filter. If that is indeed a socket, or a file, or a HTTP/2 connection is of no concern to the SSL filter.
+Same is true for filters. Each filter has a pointer to the `next` filter. When SSL has encrypted the data, it does not write to a socket, it writes to the next filter. If that is indeed a socket, or a file, or an HTTP/2 connection is of no concern to the SSL filter.
 
 And this allows the stacking, as in:
 
@@ -91,13 +91,13 @@ struct Curl_cfilter {
   BIT(connected);                /* != 0 iff this filter is connected */
 };
 ```
-The filter type `cft` is a singleton, one static struct for each type of filter. The `ctx` is where a filter will hold its specific data. That varies by filter type. A http-proxy filter will keep the ongoing state of the CONNECT here, but free it after its has been established. The SSL filter will keep the `SSL*` (if OpenSSL is used) here until the connection is closed. So, this varies.
+The filter type `cft` is a singleton, one static struct for each type of filter. The `ctx` is where a filter will hold its specific data. That varies by filter type. An http-proxy filter will keep the ongoing state of the CONNECT here, but free it after its has been established. The SSL filter will keep the `SSL*` (if OpenSSL is used) here until the connection is closed. So, this varies.
 
 `conn` is a reference to the connection this filter belongs to, so nothing extra besides the pointer itself.
 
-Several things, that before were kept in `struct connectdata`, will now go into the `filter->ctx` *when needed*. So, the memory footprint for connections that do *not* use a http proxy, or socks, or https will be lower.
+Several things, that before were kept in `struct connectdata`, will now go into the `filter->ctx` *when needed*. So, the memory footprint for connections that do *not* use an http proxy, or socks, or https will be lower.
 
-As to transfer efficiency, writing and reading through a filter comes at near zero cost *if the filter does not transform the data*. A http proxy or socks filter, once it is connected, will just pass the calls through. Those filters implementations will look like this:
+As to transfer efficiency, writing and reading through a filter comes at near zero cost *if the filter does not transform the data*. An http proxy or socks filter, once it is connected, will just pass the calls through. Those filters implementations will look like this:
 
 ```
 ssize_t  Curl_cf_def_send(struct Curl_cfilter *cf, struct Curl_easy *data,

docs/CONTRIBUTE.md

@@ -205,9 +205,9 @@ A short guide to how to write git commit messages in the curl project.
         followed by an -- empty line -- ]
     [Bug: URL to the source of the report or more related discussion; use Fixes
         for GitHub issues instead when that is appropriate]
-    [Approved-by: John Doe - credit someone who approved the PR; if you're
+    [Approved-by: John Doe - credit someone who approved the PR; if you are
         committing this for someone else using --author=... you don't need this
-        as you're implicitly approving it by committing]
+        as you are implicitly approving it by committing]
     [Authored-by: John Doe - credit the original author of the code; only use
         this if you can't use "git commit --author=..."]
     {Signed-off-by: John Doe - we don't use this, but don't bother removing it]

docs/HTTP3.md

@@ -275,7 +275,7 @@ The `happy-eyeballs-timeout-ms` value is the **hard** timeout, meaning after tha
 
 So, without you specifying anything, the hard timeout is 200ms and the soft is 100ms:
 
- * Ideally, the whole QUIC handshake happens and curl has a HTTP/3 connection in less than 100ms. 
+ * Ideally, the whole QUIC handshake happens and curl has an HTTP/3 connection in less than 100ms.
  * When QUIC is not supported (or UDP does not work for this network path), no reply is seen and the HTTP/2 TLS+TCP connection starts 100ms later.
  * In the worst case, UDP replies start before 100ms, but drag on. This will start the TLS+TCP connection after 200ms.
  * When the QUIC handshake fails, the TLS+TCP connection is attempted right away. For example, when the QUIC server presents the wrong certificate.
@@ -300,8 +300,8 @@ ones. You can easily create huge local files like `truncate -s=8G 8GB` - they
 are huge but do not occupy that much space on disk since they are just big
 holes.
 
-In my Debian setup I just installed **apache2**. It runs on port 80 and has a
+In a Debian setup you can install **apache2**. It runs on port 80 and has a
-document root in `/var/www/html`. I can get the 8GB file from it with `curl
+document root in `/var/www/html`. Download the 8GB file from apache with `curl
 localhost/8GB -o dev/null`
 
 In this description we setup and run an HTTP/3 reverse-proxy in front of the

docs/INSTALL.md

@@ -423,7 +423,7 @@ OpenSSL, follow the OpenSSL build instructions and then install `libssl.a` and
 OpenSSL like this:
 
 ```bash
-LIBS="-lssl -lcrypto -lc++" # For OpenSSL/BoringSSL. In general, you'll need to the SSL/TLS layer's transtive dependencies if you're linking statically.
+LIBS="-lssl -lcrypto -lc++" # For OpenSSL/BoringSSL. In general, you will need to the SSL/TLS layer's transtive dependencies if you are linking statically.
 ./configure --host aarch64-linux-android --with-pic --disable-shared --with-openssl="$TOOLCHAIN/sysroot/usr"
 ```
 

docs/MANUAL.md

@@ -786,18 +786,16 @@ by default.
 Default protocol version used by curl is LDAP version 3. Version 2 will be
 used as a fallback mechanism in case version 3 fails to connect.
 
-LDAP is a complex thing and writing an LDAP query is not an easy task. I do
+LDAP is a complex thing and writing an LDAP query is not an easy
-advise you to dig up the syntax description for that elsewhere. One such place
+task. Familiarize yourself with the exact syntax description elsewhere. One
-might be: [RFC 2255, The LDAP URL Format](https://curl.se/rfc/rfc2255.txt)
+such place might be: [RFC 2255, The LDAP URL
+Format](https://curl.se/rfc/rfc2255.txt)
 
-To show you an example, this is how I can get all people from my local LDAP
+To show you an example, this is how to get all people from an LDAP server that
-server that has a certain sub-domain in their email address:
+has a certain sub-domain in their email address:
 
     curl -B "ldap://ldap.frontec.se/o=frontec??sub?mail=*sth.frontec.se"
 
-If I want the same info in HTML format, I can get it by not using the `-B`
-(enforce ASCII) flag.
-
 You also can use authentication when accessing LDAP catalog:
 
     curl -u user:passwd "ldap://ldap.frontec.se/o=frontec??sub?mail=*"

docs/TheArtOfHttpScripting.md

@@ -11,8 +11,9 @@
 
  Curl is a command line tool for doing all sorts of URL manipulations and
  transfers, but this particular document will focus on how to use it when
- doing HTTP requests for fun and profit. I will assume that you know how to
+ doing HTTP requests for fun and profit. This documents assumes that you know
- invoke `curl --help` or `curl --manual` to get basic information about it.
+ how to invoke `curl --help` or `curl --manual` to get basic information about
+ it.
 
  Curl is not written to do everything for you. It makes the requests, it gets
  the data, it sends data and it retrieves the information. You probably need

docs/cmdline-opts/proxy-http2.d

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Category: http proxy
 Example: --proxy-http2 -x proxy $URL
 Multi: boolean
 ---
-Tells curl to try negotiate HTTP version 2 with a HTTPS proxy. The proxy might
+Tells curl to try negotiate HTTP version 2 with an HTTPS proxy. The proxy might
 still only offer HTTP/1 and then curl will stick to using that version.
 
 This has no effect for any other kinds of proxies.

docs/libcurl/opts/CURLOPT_ALTSVC.3

@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_ALTSVC, char *filename);
 .SH DESCRIPTION
 Pass in a pointer to a \fIfilename\fP to instruct libcurl to use that file as
 the Alt-Svc cache to read existing cache contents from and possibly also write
-it back to a after a transfer, unless \fBCURLALTSVC_READONLYFILE\fP is set in
+it back to after a transfer, unless \fBCURLALTSVC_READONLYFILE\fP is set in
 \fICURLOPT_ALTSVC_CTRL(3)\fP.
 
 Specify a blank file name ("") to make libcurl not load from a file at all.

docs/libcurl/opts/CURLOPT_AWS_SIGV4.3

@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ method special.  This method cannot be combined with other auth types.
 A sha256 checksum of the request payload is used as input to the signature
 calculation.  For POST requests, this is a checksum of the provided
 \fICURLOPT_POSTFIELDS(3)\fP.  Otherwise, it's the checksum of an empty buffer.
-For requests like PUT, you can provide your own checksum in a HTTP header named
+For requests like PUT, you can provide your own checksum in an HTTP header named
 \fBx-provider2-content-sha256\fP.
 .PP
 For \fBaws:s3\fP, a \fBx-amz-content-sha256\fP header is added to every request

docs/libcurl/opts/CURLOPT_PROXY.3

@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ Since 7.21.7 the proxy string supports the socks protocols as "schemes".
 Since 7.50.2, unsupported schemes in proxy strings cause libcurl to return
 error.
 
-curl built to use NSS cannot connect to a HTTPS server over a unix domain
+curl built to use NSS cannot connect to an HTTPS server over a unix domain
 socket.
 .SH RETURN VALUE
 Returns CURLE_OK if proxies are supported, CURLE_UNKNOWN_OPTION if not, or