=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 6, no. 8 (25 February 2001) Editorial mailing list (digest version) Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: Q & A [2nd] Turn of the century [2ne] Abbreviating Jewish names [2nf] Punctuation marks in English [2ng] Nuisance Footnotes [2nh] Finding out of print books [2ni] Finding journal titles FYI [3gb] Inkspot closing down Business matters [4dz] Rapid "reading" technique [4ea] Occupational health and safety advice [5] Bookmarks [6] Just for fun [8] Administration =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[2] Q&A ----------------------------------------------------- ** [2nd] Turn of the century Date: Thurs, 22 Feb 2001 From: Peter Best, pbest@idl.net.au Jane Kerr wrote: > What do my fellow editors understand by the expression "the > turn of the 19th century"? Round about 1800, or round about > 1900? Phil Weston then wrote: > I guess it doesn't matter what WE understand by it, the question > is what does the author who wrote it thinks it means? -- and I > reckon there's a 50:50 chance of it going either way! > > So, if the context is clear, use "at the start of the XXth > century" or "at the end of the YYth century" or the like, but > if there is any doubt at all, raise an author query. ... Interesting! I came across a line in a book on Jane Austen where "the turn of the 18th century clearly referred to 1799/1800. I'd always considered it to be the other way round. ------------------------ Date: Thurs, 22 Feb 2001 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@ntlworld.com *I* have always understood "turn of the 19th century" to mean around 1800. I just wanted to find out what the general view was. My author, I suspect, means around about 1900. I agree that it's ambiguous, and I will rephrase. ---------------------- Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 From: David Ibbetson, ibbetson@idirect.com This was discussed on CE-L a few months ago. We failed to agree. As far as I remember nobody cited the OED, but it's weak on phrases. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2ne] Abbreviating Jewish names Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 From: Bob Davenport, bob@bobdavenport.freeserve.co.uk I've been unable to find any references on abbreviating Jewish names. If an author doesn't want to refer to 'Leyb ben Ozer', say, in full, should the short version be 'Ozer' (as the author concerned has it at present), 'ben Ozer', or perhaps even 'Leyb'? ---------------------- Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 From: David Ibbetson, ibbetson@idirect.com Leyb ben Ozer can be literally translated "Leyb son of Ozer". He might be referred to as "ben Ozer" (On of the early Israeli leaders was "ben Gurion") or "Leyb". Just as I might be referred to as "Ibbetson" or "David", but not as "Ibbet". At least that's how I see it. David ib ---------------------- Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@ntlworld.com Not Ibbet,but ib's OK? ;-) Jane K. ---------------------- Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 From: David Ibbetson, ibbetson@idirect.com Not Kerr, but K's OK? ;-) P.S. My e-mail signature was originally "idiot". It went through many variations before I settled on "ib". David ib ---------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 From: Bob Davenport, bob@bobdavenport.freeserve.co.uk David Ibbetson wrote: > Leyb ben Ozer can be literally translated "Leyb son of Ozer". > He might be referred to as "ben Ozer" (On of the early Israeli > leaders was "ben Gurion") or "Leyb". Just as I might be > referred to as "Ibbetson" or "David", but not as "Ibbet". Yes, that was my thinking too, though I've always seen 'Ben- Gurion' thus and wondered if the different form of presentation might require a different form of shortening. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2nf] Punctuation marks in English Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 From: Iain Brown, iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk Last night on the TV programme, "The West Wing", the President asked his fellow poker players to name the 14 English-language punctuation marks. Whilst watching the rest of the programme, I typed up all the ones I could identify immediately. I am a frustrated wreck: which ones have I forgotten? 1. . Full stop 2. , Comma 3. ; Semi-colon 4. : Colon 5. ' Apostrophe 6. " Quotation marks 7. - Hyphen 8. ? Question mark 9. ! Exclamation mark 10. ?????? 11. ?????? 12. ?????? 13. ?????? 14. ?????? And are there really only 14? +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2ng] Nuisance Footnotes Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 From: Lane Lester, llester@simbiosys.org Do you find that some authors have an inordinate fondness for footnotes? As a reader, I consider a large proportion of the footnotes I encounter to be nothing more than a nuisance and a hindrance to efficient reading. You encounter that superscripted numeral, and you just =have= to move your eyes to the bottom of the page to see if it's something worthwhile. Often you discover that it's a minor parenthetical tidbit that should instead have been in... parentheses! ---------------------- Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 From: Josephine Bacon, bacon@langservice.com I totally agree with Lane and in academic books it seems like there is some sort of macho competittion to see who can produce the most footnotes! ---------------------- Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2001 From: Lane Lester, llester@simbiosys.org One of the reasons I posted the message is because I publish as a volunteer a small scientific journal, and I often convert inappropriate footnotes to parenthetical remarks in the body of the article. Since I do it for free, I'm not likely to get fired. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2nh] Finding out of print books Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 From: Jane Hammett, jane.plowman@lineone.net Can anyone help me? I'm looking for a website that can look for/order out of print books - or one which at least contains publishing information on OOP books. Thanks! ---------------------- Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 From: Corinne Orde, c.orde@btinternet.com > Can anyone help me? I'm looking for a website that can look > for/order out of print books Try < http://www.bookfinder.com > ---------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 From: Jo Rudd, jorudd@one.net.au < http://www.alibris.com deals > with out of print books, among other sorts. ---------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 From: Bess Flores, bflores@camtech.net.au OP books: another to add to your list is the US-based < http://www.abebook.com > It specialises in antiquarian & OP titles & includes booksellers from at least Australia, Canada, UK & USA. ---------------------- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 From: ArtPros@aol.com Bess Flores wrote: > OP books: another to add to your list is the US-based > > < http://www.abebook.com > This is < http://www.abebooks.com > I've used them for quite a while to track down out-of-print books for purchase. However, the listings do depend upon the accuracy of the booksellers' descriptions, and misspellings and other errors do occur. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2ni] Finding journal titles Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 From: Jane Hammett, jane.plowman@lineone.net Does anyone know of a website that contains a comprehensive list of all journals published, on all topics, so that you can type in an abbreviation or part of a word and discover the whole title or at least a range of options? ---------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 From: Jo Rudd, jorudd@one.net.au You might find this site useful: < http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/JAS.htm > where JAS = journal abbreviation sources. The rest of the site looks pretty useful too (Iowa State Uni) --- [Note: the capitalised letters in the above URL are essential! --IDB] ---[3] FYI ----------------------------------------------------- ** [3gb] Inkspot closing down Date: Tues, 20 Feb 2001 From: Iain Brown, iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk A tribute from Moira Allen, former Managing Editor, Inkspot On Monday, February 12, an icon of the writing world was brought to an end. Xlibris, owner of the Inkspot website and Inklings newsletter, decided to close Inkspot down. Xlibris purchased Inkspot from its founder, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, in July 2000. Its goal was to combine the communities of Inkspot and Xlibris -- and, of course, to channel some of Inkspot's vast audience toward Xlibris's print-on-demand services. In return, it promised to provide resources to Inkspot that would enable the website to grow and expand -- and fulfill many of the dreams Debbie had for it but simply didn't have the resources to fulfill. ... While Inkspot did grow -- its genre sections blossomed under the capable administration of Kennerly Clay -- it never was able to add most of the new features and services Debbie had hoped for. Meanwhile, Xlibris itself was growing -- too fast, apparently. Rumors of impending cutbacks and general belt- tightening began in the fall of 2000, and layoffs began at the beginning of 2001. I can hardly say that no one "ever expected" Inkspot to be imperiled; we did. What we feared, however, was a slow death -- a gradual withdrawal of resources, a decline in funding, and a corresponding shrinkage in content and support for the website. These concerns seemed to be confirmed when we were informed that we'd need to cut the Inkspot budget in early February. But nothing prepared us for the shock of being told that the site would simply be dropped. On Monday morning, in-house staff were told to clean out their desks, and Debbie was informed that all freelance/telecommuting staff would have to cease work as well. The immensity of this decision is still hard to comprehend. One can only assume that Xlibris simply had (and has) no idea of what Inkspot and Inklings meant to the online writing community. Inklings went out to 47,000 subscribers, while the website received approximately 100,000 visits per month. More than 10,000 sites around the world link to Inkspot, and the site had just received a flurry of awards and positive publicity (including being named one of Writer's Digest's top 101 writing websites). Now it is gone. The last issue of Inklings went out on February 14 (what a Valentine's Day message that was!). The site itself will remain online for about a month, which will give Inkspot time to let its visitors know what has happened, and redirect them to other sites. Several staffers, myself included, are making efforts to salvage whatever can be salvaged from the site and relocate material and resources elsewhere; we are fairly certain that the forums will live on, and possibly the classifieds as well. I'll be making an effort to bring over at least some of the editorial content to this site, and possibly take on one or two of the columnists as well. There's a bit of irony here: That a major corporation could not support a site that had been maintained for five years by a single individual working out of her home in Toronto! Or, perhaps, it is again simply a matter of a corporation who failed to understand the value of what they had. Certainly all the rest of us who loved Inkspot understand that value -- and will sorely miss it. ---[4] Business matters --------------------------------------- ** [4dz] Rapid "reading" technique Date: Thurs, 22 Feb 2001 From: Mark Hendy, markhendy1@compuserve.com A few years ago the ubiquitous Ken Campbell (he of the grin and the black leather hat) presented a Channel Four TV series of his own devising on human consciousness. Subsequently in an article in the Guardian (on a Saturday, I think, in the forerunner of the current Weekend supplement) he wrote of a proprietary technique he had used which allowed him to unconsciously memorise the contents of a book by merely staring briefly at each page in numerical order while at the same time performing a special mental exercise. Ken claimed that using this technique had enabled him to discuss in detail the content of a high-level book with its author, an Oxford don, without ever having become acquainted with it in any normal sense. The interview with the author was shown in the TV series, but the "reading" technique was mentioned only in the Guardian article, in which I seem to remember Ken wrote that he found himself quite astonished at the depth of his apparent knowledge, and disclaimed any kind of photographic memory. Does anyone know which proprietary technique Ken was referring to, whether it's still available, and if so where and for how much, and whether it has actually worked for anyone else? (It is clearly a bit different from the well-established fast reading methods customarily available via evening classes, teach-yourself books etc.) All answers, even vague clues, gratefully received... ------------------------ Date: Thurs, 22 Feb 2001 From: Anneliese Emmans Dean, a.emmansdean@lineone.net It could be PhotoReading you're thinking of. This is a technique developed by Paul Scheele. There's a book by Scheele explaining how it's done called "The PhotoReading Whole Mind System" (ISBN: 0-925480-50-9). Or you can get an audio course narrated by Scheele to teach you it. More info from Scheele's Learning Strategies Corporation at 900 East Wayzata Boulevard, Wayzata, Minnesota. There's bound to be a website about it somewhere too. He claims great successes with his method - e.g. reading at 25,000 words per minute. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [4ea] Occupational health and safety advice Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 From: Anna Beth McCormack, mccormack@goulburn.net.au I feel the need of some practical advice on what to do about a recurrent painful corn on my middle finger, caused by pen pressure. - I use fine Artline pens rather than biros because they require much less pressure. - I've tried holding pens differently; but because I work mostly in tiny writing in small spaces, I end up holding the pen in the same place for the control. - I've tried using a plastic sleeve on pens and padding the finger with a bandaid/elastoplast, but they help very little. - I've removed the corn with a corn plaster, chewed it out, abraded it with a file. The corn seems to go, just leaving a 'writer's bump', but when the quantity of work builds up the corn quickly recurs. What next? Should I try some products designed for toes---cushion pads of foam or plastic---but how do you keep them on, and do they help? Any advice (other than 'work on-screen')? ---[5] Bookmarks ---------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 From: Iain Brown, iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk The Acronym Finder: Claims to be the Web's "most comprehensive database of acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms. 186,000+ definitions". < http://www.acronymfinder.com/ > ---[6] Just for fun -------------------------------------------- Oxymorons, no. 23 Tight slacks +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "I'm glad we clarified that", no. 12 On Sainsbury peanuts: "Warning: contains nuts". (Newsflash!) ------------------------ Date: Thurs, 22 Feb 2001 From: Francis Good, Francis.Good@nt.gov.au Re: EDline Digest 6.7 > "I'm glad we clarified that", no. 11 > > On a Japanese food processor: "Not to be used for the other > use". > > (I have to admit I'm curious!) On a Japanese coffee plunger: "When depressing plunger, do not use extreme violence". (Moderate karate chops apparently are okay?) ------------------------ Date: Thurs, 22 Feb 2001 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@ntlworld.com My coffee machine's manual includes the helpful instruction: When fitting central unit, do not press "PRESS" ---------------------- Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 From: Anna McCormack, mccormack@goulburn.net.au I would like to have seen ANY warning label on my first encounter with a coffee plunger: in a restaurant, coffee-plunger for one, quick downward push, coffee and grounds everywhere ... ---[8] Administration ------------------------------------------ EDline provides the opportunity for an online discussion of matters editorial and editorial business. To post to the mailing list via ListBot, use the following address: ee_edline@listbot.com For digest subscribers, please post your EDline messages to: bywater@zetnet.co.uk 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. The sections of the EDline digest are as follows: [2] Q & A -- questions and answers [3] FYI -- items of general interest [4] Business matters -- items of a business nature [5] Bookmarks -- useful Web pages [6] Just for fun -- time for letting hair down! [7] Miscellaneous -- odds and sods * Administration All messages of a subscription or administrative nature should be directed to Iain Brown, at: iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk with "EDline ADMIN" in the subject line. * To subscribe to the automated version of EDline Send a blank email to: ee_edline-subscribe@listbot.com If you would prefer to read EDline as a weekly digest, send an e-mail to ElectricEds@bigfoot.com with "Subscribe [EDline digest]" as the subject line. * Homepage and back issues: Visit the Electric Editors at: < http://www.electriceditors.net/ > Archives of the EDline automated discussions can be found at: < http://ee_edline.listbot.com/ > --------- ** 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) 2001, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996, 1997, 2000 Iain Brown Compilation (c) 2001, Iain Brown / The Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 6.8 Next digest issue: 4 March 2001 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=