=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 2, no. 47 (23 November 1997) Editorial mailing list Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: [1] Editorial Q & A---Previous queries [2bt] On-screen editing [2bv] En dashes -- American usage Q & A---New queries [2bz] Grammar FYI [3bd] US Copyright extension [6] Just for fun [8] Administration =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[1] Editorial ----------------------------------------------------- Just a quick request, to make the task of the moderators a little easier -- if you change your email address, you don't need to "Unsubscribe" then "Subscribe" again under your new address. Simply send a message to ElectricEds@Bigfoot.com with [Change of address] in the subject line. It would be helpful if you could also include both your old *and* your new address in the body of the message. Jane Kerr Iain Brown ---[2] Q & A --------------------------------------------------------- ** [2bt] On-screen editing Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 From: Corinne Orde, 106330.1445@compuserve.com In response to Martyn Yeo's comments about my 'bizarre approach to on-screen editing' (which, however, is tried and tested, has stood me in good stead since 1990 and which I am not about to change), I reiterate that although I use Quark for copy-editing and typesetting, I do use Word for tidying up authors' files and for preparing files for editing. Many of the tools Martyn says Quark lacks are what I consider to be tools for authoring, generating and preparing text - in other words, tools for word-processing - but not tools for copy-editing, or bringing copy (that has been word-processed) up to publishable standard. I don't need 'autocorrect' and 'sort' facilities when I am copy-editing, but I might well need them when I am word-processing. However, as an editor, not an author, I am rarely called upon to word-process, since much of the work requiring that type of processing will have been done by the author. Most of the time authors will already have been briefed by their publishers on how to present their files on disk. And my experience is that authors are getting better and better at this. Some files do come over as a mess, but sometimes all that is needed is a different conversion filter, or a request that the author re-save the files in a different format. Of course I do use tricks and macros to 'clean up' files, and for that I use Word. I don't, however, class that sort of work as 'copy- editing'. And nor was I really talking about straightforward text editing: I had in mind complex typesetting work (e.g.linguistics; maths and so on), where every character has to be individually positioned, shifted or kerned and material has to be carefully copyfitted. For that type of work, to edit in Word only to have to go through it all over again in Quark would simply be doing the job twice needlessly. This way I can copyfit as I edit and typeset as I edit. To deal with some of the other 'desirable' gadgets that Quark lacks. Although I am a linguist, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I might have wished for 'the ability to switch languages for spell checking'. And the idea of using 'multiple spell check dictionaries at the same time' doesn't really appeal; one dictionary is quite sufficient for my purposes. In any case, I never rely on software dictionaries for anything other than to pick up basic typos. Custom dictionaries are useful, but it's far to easy to embed an incorrect spelling into one of these for good and all, and you still have to make sure you haven't 'customized' alternative spellings of the same word. Contrary to Martyn's experience, I have no problems switching files of straight text back and forth between Word 5 and Quark. This is something I do frequently when a client needs my files in Word, because I find Quark much faster than Word (on the Mac at least; things may be different in Windows). Perhaps this has to do with the fact that Quark is a program that was originally written for the Mac and its makers (unlike Microsoft) were always very committed to the Mac platform. Also unlike Martyn, I find the Mac Quark can search and replace en spaces, fixed spaces and en rules. If that were not so, I wouldn't be using the program as that is such a basic requirement! Re. Truetype fonts, I don't use them; nor do any of my clients. Output bureaux recommend against them. On the same subject, but responding to Bob Symonds, I've been using Adobe Type Manager for seven years and wouldn't be without it! ---------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 From: Ian Kingston, ian@ikingston.demon.co.uk I read both Corinne and Martyn's contributions with some interest. Like Martyn, I was surprised that Corinne prefers to edit in Quark, rather than using a word processor, but I assumed that Quark must have some spectacular set of features that make Word almost redundant. Martyn's reply shows how wrong I was! While the forthcoming release of Quark will probably fix some of these deficiencies, I can only say how much I agree with Martyn's position. My preferred typesetting software, Ventura 7, actually *does* have most of the features that Martyn cites, yet I still find it a very poor choice for editing text. However, I wonder how much of this is down to personal preference and how much depends on the features of the software. For editing work I use WordPerfect whenever possible, but recently I've taken on some regular work that requires me to use Word. Despite being very familiar with Word, and having plenty of macros and other tools to help, I still find it difficult to work at top speed in Word. I've configured the keyboard to match WordPerfect as closely as possible, altered the display so that the fonts and zoom values match, and taken advantage of everything that Word does better than WordPerfect (not much!), and still I hate having to use it. Could this be behind Corinne's preference for Quark? Is it sheer familiarity that makes Quark easier to use than Word, even allowing for Quark's technical deficiencies as a text editor? ---------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 From: Bruce Tober, octobersdad@reporters.net Martyn Yeo wrote: > When you select which software to use, you should choose the > most appropriate tool for the job [...] > Quark is a superb typesetting environment, but it is not > designed to be an editing environment. Compared with Word, > Quark does not have: I would second everything he said, except I would substitute WordPerfect for virtually every instance of W**d, simply because it's a far superior product. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2bv] En dashes -- American usage Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 From: Hannah Hyam, hhyam@globalnet.co.uk I'm posting this query again (not having had any response), in the hope that somebody out there knows the answer and just didn't get round to replying first time round! Do American editors use en dashes (instead of hyphens) to convey the meaning 'to' or 'and' in pairs of words? Examples: father--daughter relationship, East--West pact, hero--villain. I find no mention of this usage in the section on en dashes in the Chicago Manual of Style, and wonder whether it would be wrong to insert them in an American text, whereas I wouldn't hesitate to do so in a British one. [Editor's Note: Come on, you Americans -- we know you're out there! Someone must know the answer to this.---JK] +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2bz] Grammar Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 From: Dominik Kreuzer, DKreuzer@compuserve.com I have just read an article published in the October 20 edition of Newsweek entitled "So I'm Like, 'Who Needs This Grammar Stuff?"". Here are some excerpts: "Michael Manson, executive director of the northeast chapter of the Modern Language Association, predicts the demise of the apostrophe within 50 years. Today's students, he says, can't get the rules straight." Richard Lanham, a retired UCLA English professor is quoted as saying that complaints about the erosion of grammar are "really tiresome" and that it's "just snobbery". "As Emerson put it, "The English language is the sea which receives tributaries from every region under Heaven." The internet, and the borderless communication it fosters, is not only increasing those tributaries; it is also a driving force behind the colloquialism that purists detest. E-mail begs for a less formal style than traditional written communication and is blurring the distinction between writing and speech. The editors of the digital-age bible Wired published a stylebook last year instructing not just e-mailers, but all writers, to "write the way people talk. Don't insist on 'standard' English." And ... consider what might happen ... as computers become more adept at transcribing speech. Suppose we dictate everything?" The author has a point, I think. News reporting is becoming increasingly colloquial. From the age of 12, when I moved to Britain, until my O-levels I was puzzled by the almost complete absence of grammar teaching in English lessons. Apart from what I learned in Austria in the two years prior to moving to Britain, I consider myself almost entirely self-taught as far as grammar is concerned. But how do we Grammatically Correct linguists fit into this picture: should we stand our ground and protect the public at large from its ignorance in matters language and try to educate them, or should we go with the flow and yield to the inevitable development of living language. If the development foreseen by Newsweek materialises, the former may eventually make our scribblings look dated. Will we see the formation of an increasing gulf between a *linguistic elite* and the Gramatically Deprived public? ---[3] FYI ----------------------------------------------------------- ** [3bd] US Copyright extension Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 From: David Ibbetson, ibbetson@idirect.com I agree with Josephine Bacon and Dennis Karjala. While I take John Davis's point about dying the day after his book is published I think the right way of dealing with this is to give all protected items the term of years now given to patents, I think it's 28 years. Whatever the item I think this is quite long enough. ---[6] Just for fun -------------------------------------------------- "Lines from the slushpile", no. 10 Our days were filled with parties, tennis, and golf. But I wanted more. I needed dirty hands and faces to fill my life. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "Everyone needs an editor". no. 2 "No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft". --H.G. WELLS +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ _Faux-pas_ of the week Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 From: Merle Read, ReadMA@aol.com Last week I saw tortellini described on a menu as "belly-buttoned shaped pasta". Mmm! ---------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 From: John Bangsund, bangsund@pipeline.com.au Ian Kingston mentions the "hoards of mathematicians". Twenty-odd years ago I edited a book about Australian lighthouses, which the author enlivened with local lore, legend and compulsive alliteration. One of her stories concerned a pirate named Bonito Benito, who is said to have buried his loot somewhere in the south-western region of Port Phillip (which, irrelevantly, is where I now live): "hordes of dubloons!" she wrote. Naturally I altered this to "mobs of crazed Irishmen". +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 From: Elizabeth Boulton, L.Boulton@law.monash.edu.au [Cross-posted from Editorial-L (Australia)] ODE TO SPELL CHECKERS I have a spelling checker I disk covered four my PC. It plane lee marks four my revue Miss steaks aye can knot see. Eye ran this poem threw it. Your sure real glad two no. Its very polished in its weigh, My checker tolled me sew. A checker is a blessing. It freeze yew lodes of thyme. It helps me right awl stiles two reed, And aides me when aye rime. Each frays comes posed up on my screen Eye trussed too bee a joule. The checker pours o'er every word To cheque sum spelling rule. Bee fore wee rote with checkers Hour spelling was inn deck line, Butt now when wee dew have a laps, Wee are not maid too wine. And now bee cause my spelling Is checked with such grate flare, There are know faults in awl this peace, Of nun eye am a wear. To rite with care is quite a feet Of witch won should be proud, And wee mussed dew the best wee can, Sew flaws are knot aloud. That's why eye brake in two averse Cuz Eye dew want too please. Sow glad eye yam that aye did bye This soft wear four pea seas. Author Unknown ---[8] Administration ------------------------------------------------ EDline provides the opportunity for a weekly online discussion of matters editorial and editorial business. * POSTING MESSAGES TO THE LIST All messages to be posted to the list should be sent to either Jane Kerr, at: bywater@zetnet.co.uk or Iain Brown, at: i_brown@compuserve.com Include as the subject line, "EDline [topic]", where [topic] is the subject under discussion. Topics might include areas such as Grammar, Spelling, American English or Punctuation. Messages should be pertinent to the basic premise of the list; they may be withheld, or redirected if more pertinent to one of the other mailing lists. The spelling and grammar of messages will *not* be corrected, but some editing of length may be undertaken. Quoting from previous messages: quote as much as you need to make the context of your reply clear, but no more. * Administration All messages of a subscription or administrative nature should be directed to Iain Brown at: i_brown@compuserve.com with "EDline ADMIN" in the subject line. * To subscribe to Grapevine To subscribe to Grapevine, the discussion list concerned with matters computing, please e-mail Electric Editors at: ElectricEds@bigfoot.com with [Subscribe Grapevine] in the subject line. * To subscribe to LANGline To subscribe to LANGline, which discusses modern languages, translation and editing in non-English languages, please e-mail Electric Editors at: ElectricEds@bigfoot.com with [Subscribe LANGline] in the subject line. *Homepage and back issues: Visit the Electric Editors at: < http://www.ikingston.demon.co.uk/ee/home.htm > Back issues of all three mailing lists are available on the Mailing Lists archive page. --------- ** The views expressed in this mailing list are strictly those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the moderators or of the Electric Editors. ** Articles (c) 1997, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996, 1997 Iain Brown =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 2.47 Next issue: 30 November 1997 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=