=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 3, no. 1 (4 January 1998) Editorial mailing list Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: Q & A---Previous queries [2ca] Word v. WordPerfect [2cc] Spelling in German [2ce] Legal documents Q & A---New queries [2cf] Fractions [5] Bookmarks [6] Just for fun [8] Administration =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[2] Q & A --------------------------------------------------------- ** [2ca] Word v. WordPerfect Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 From: Dan Wilson, Editor@TopService.com I work in Word 97 when I must, but my preference is to work in WordPerfect 8 if that option is available. For sophistication, power, and range of editing tools, the latter is infinitely superior, in my book. Nearly every working copyeditor I know prefers WordPerfect to Word by an enormous margin. We must work most of the time on electronic manuscripts prepared by authors who have no idea at all what they are doing when they use their word processors, and they inevitably and unknowingly corrupt their pages with multitudes of unnecessary and unseen codes. Those codes are just waiting for the opportunity to do evil and inscrutable things to the ms later, when, in the course of editing, we add new codes that match them, or delete codes that neutralize them. Alt + F3 almost always provides the explanation for the fact that a simple edit has produced an amazing, unpredicted, and massive change in the document, or for the fact that repeated attempts to alter some characteristic of the formatting have failed. It's true that Word has some approximations to Reveal Codes, but they're not nearly so editor-enabling as the real thing. Microsoft has been so concerned about the huge volume of mail concerning the continued absence of Reveal Codes that it has commissioned a long, instructive, but ultimately unsatisfying white paper entitled "Life After Reveal Codes," which is available at the Microsoft site. It's too bad they didn't just spend the money developing a true equivalent of Reveal Codes for Word. The only editors I know who don't prefer WordPerfect readily admit that they haven't fully learned to use it. Such is the case for Eddie, who said here last week that he's barely looked at the program, but wishes that it offered the opportunity to look into files without opening them in the full word processor. That capacity is there, of course, in all versions of WP for windows. It's called "preview" now, and it's available in the Open dialog. Its speed and power make the old 5.1 access look very feeble, Eddie. Happy New Year to all, even those who prefer Word to the vastly superior editing tool. --------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 From: Hilary Powers, 72120.1324@compuserve.com Eddie Kent wrote: > But something I miss dreadfully from WordPerfect 5.1 is the > ability to glance inside a file without having all the bother > of loading it. Maybe for people with fast machines this is no > great problem, but for me it is. You'll probably get forty-nine bazillion notes about this, but just in case -- doesn't the "view" option do exactly this? It's on the open screen, and certainly seems to work just like WP5.1, with the added wrinkle that you can copy from the viewed file to the Clipboard. --------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 From: Bruce Tober, octobersdad@reporters.net Hannah Hyam wrote: > [...] the 'Reveal Formatting' function in Word 7 [...] won't, > as far as I can see, distinguish an en rule from a hyphen, > which Ian Kingston mentioned, but it seems to cover practically > everything else. Er, does it allow you to manipulate the codes in order to alter the formatting. Or is it just another pretty window that billie allows you to look through and admire the wonder of his program without being able to altr it to your own personal world view? Eddie Kent wrote: > I am unable to join in the discussion on the relative merits of > Word and WordPerfect because since installing WordPerfect 6x I > must have looked at it three times. But something I miss > dreadfully from WordPerfect 5.1 is the ability to glance inside > a file without having all the bother of loading it. Maybe for > people with fast machines this is no great problem, but for me > it is. I've a P166 with tons of ram and it's still a problem. I can do the sort of preview of the document in the file manager, but that's not what I need. I can do previews of the document in Quick View, but that's not what I need. I need the old DOS view of the document in which I could search for words and phrases to see if it's the document I need etc. Ah well, such is "progress". +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2cc] Spelling in German Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 From: Richard Leigh, pixpady@compuserve.com Hazel Coleman wrote: > Can anyone enlighten me as to why in German the letters "ue", > "oe" and "ae" are sometimes used instead of the letters "u", > "o" and "a" with umlauts? Probably just a question of style. I think originally the handwritten umlaut resembled an e above the letter. > Is it now appropriate always to change them to their umlauted > equivalents, or should I be wary of pitfalls? Be very, very careful here. I have a friend whose surname is Go"bel and not Goebel (not that these are pronounced any differently). And you certainly cannot always assume that it would even make sense to change from an umlaut to a following 'e' or vice versa. Sometimes what looks like an umlaut isn't one at all: for example, there is a town called Soest, where the 'oe' is simply a long 'o', so you could not substitute 'So"st'. Then again, the 'ui' in Duisburg is pronounced as a u-umlaut. > I have come across two proper names so far: the Voelkischer > Beobachter and a Herr Mueller, who seems to have been a high- > ranking officer in the Wehrmacht. Would I be wrong to change > either of these? I believe Vo"lkischer is correct, but Mueller may also be correct -- probably best to query. > Another query is simpler (though I am ashamed of myself for > not having learnt the language): what is the plural of > Bierkeller? Is it Bierkeller? If so, what solutions would > other people suggest for dialogue in which this term is used > in the plural? Anglicise it to Bierkellers or even beer halls? > The author uses Bierkelleren, which I suspect is not correct. Bierkelleren is not correct. Bierkeller is the plural. If you anglicise it and add an 's', then you would also use a lower-case 'b', wouldn't you? I don't think 'beer hall' would necessarily always be appropriate; some of the Bierkeller I have seen in the bowels of German town halls (Keller = cellar) are too small to be designated 'halls'. [Editor's note: I've adopted the LANGline convention of using " after the appropriate letter, to indicate an umlauted character, to avoid any problems with quoted printables. -- JK] +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2ce] Legal documents Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 From: David Ibbetson, ibbetson@idirect.com Mary Fox wrote: > Although I could work on the wording of this [legal] document, > I know 'legalese' is a language with rules of its own - [...] > and I don't know the rules! I don't want to reword it only to > find it is unacceptable to the legal experts who have to pass > it before publication. > Does anyone know of any guidelines on this or has anyone > experience of such matters? > I have suggested to the client that the legal text could be left > as it is, with each paragraph preceded by an explanatory > sentence in plain English. I suggest that the first thing is to have a discussion with the client's lawyers, preferably with a sample rewritten clause. Coupling the original text with a translation will raise the question "Which is authoritative?" If the document doesn't say loud and clear which text counts a lawsuit will quickly follow. If your remit is to rewrite the legal agreement in plain English, then that is what you should do, similarly if your remit is to produce a layman's guide to the (unchanged) agreement. But, do be clear. HTH David (who is not a lawyer) the ibid +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2cf] Fractions Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 From: John Campbell, mclift@enterprise.net [Editor's note: I think this query is really more appropriate to Grapevine, but I've allowed it since we have been wandering off- topic lately anyway, with the Word v. WP thing, and I'm still in my post-holiday/pre-work good mood. However, any subsequent discussion on this subject will be forwarded to Grapevine instead - so if you're interested, and you don't already subscribe to Grapevine, you'd better get your Subscribe requests in! -- JK] Do you know of a simple way to do fractions in Quark, Claris or Word? At the moment we are having to construct them using smaller font sizes, sup/sub and kern. There has to be an easier way,surely? ---[5] Bookmarks ----------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 From: Petra Kopp, kopp@zetnet.co.uk New 24-hour virtual library: < http://www.libraryspot.com > LibrarySpot is the information sweetspot of the best library and reference resources on the Web. Find top reference tools, periodicals, online texts, library information and insightful editorial in one high-utility, user-friendly spot. Brain Candy: < http://members.aol.com/WordPlays/words.html > Have fun with your brain. Some great & unusual collections: sarcastic insults by well known people, the dying words of famous people, stupid questions. Word play: malapropisms, funny definitions, occupational hazards, full-deckisms. Quotes, riddles, puns - hours of fun stuff. ---[6] Just for fun -------------------------------------------------- "Lines from the slushpile", no. 15 Without moving, she reached across and kissed him. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "Everyone needs an editor". no. 7 "Each book, before the contract, is beautiful to contemplate. By the middle of the writing, the book has become, for the author, a hate object. For the editor, in the middle of editing, it has become a two-ton concrete necklace. However, both author and editor will recover the gleam in their eyes when the work is complete, and see the book as the masterwork it really is". -- SAM VAUGHAN +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 From: Petra Kopp, kopp@zetnet.co.uk A label at my local butcher's reads: "Glutton-free Italian sausages"! +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 From: Eddie Kent, eddie.kent@mcr1.poptel.org.uk EUROENGLISH The European Commission has at last agreed that English will be the official language of Europe, rather than German, which until now has been a strong contender. In recognition of this the British government has agreed to the following improvements to the language, which will be introduced over a five year period. In the first year s will replace the soft c. This will sertainly make sivil servants happy. The hard c will be dropped in favour of k. This will reduse konfusion and keyboards will need one less letter. There will be growing enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome ph will be replased by f; this will make words like fotograf 20 per sent shorter. In the third year publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double leters, wish has always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent e in the languag is disgrasful and should be don away with. By the fourth year peopl will be reseptiv to steps sush as replasing th with z and w with v. During the fifz year ze unesesary o can be droped from words containing ou, and similar shanges vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer ve vil hav a sinsibl riten styl. Zer wil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! (Passed on by Ivor Hall) ---[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 Jane Kerr, at: bywater@zetnet.co.uk 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 Jane Kerr, at: bywater@zetnet.co.uk 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) 1998, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996, 1997 Iain Brown =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 3.1 Next issue: 11 January 1998 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=