=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 8, no. 19 (25 February 2003) Editorial mailing list (digest version) Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: Q & A [2xo] 'Mark-up' vs 'markup' =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[2]-- Q & A -------------------------------------------------- Date: Thurs, 20 Feb 2003 From: Odile Sullivan-Tarazi, odile@mindspring.com Steve Rickaby wrote: > My current author is trying to convince me that 'markup' is now > an accepted usage. I am unconvinced. Does anyone have the > authoritative answer? I don't know the situation in the UK, but here in the States, in the tech industry, I've been seeing compounds of "up" steadily coming together over the last decade whenever they're used as adjectives or nouns. And so, in my world at any rate, these compounds, which once appeared (again, only as adjectives or nouns) in some environments hyphenated and in others closed, are now much more consistently closed -- backup cleanup rollup setup startup Seems more common when the first portion of the compound is a single syllable. I've not noticed anyone trying to bring together, for instance, "bottom-up." All of those compounds of "up" now look routine to me. (Have my sensibilities been irrevocably compromised?) But I shudder at seeing the hyphens removed from words like these -- built-in add-in add-on Where I work currently, we are actually using "addin" now. Yuck. ---------------------- Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 From: Steve Rickaby, srickaby@wordmongers.demon.co.uk Thanks to Odile for this. Yes, it seems that, in this case, 'markup' is accepted usage in the technical context of this term, as in 'HTML markup'. I too deplore the widespread acceptance of synthetic compound forms. I think the 'marketing' industry is a chief progenitor here. It has, for example, recently given us the tooth-gratingly horrible 'instore', used everywhere by supermarkets, as in 'offers available instore'. ------------------------ Date: Thurs, 20 Feb 2003 From: Soni Stecker, literal@netconnect.com.au Steve Rickaby wrote: > ... I sometimes think that English is turning into German. I > was following a van the other day that proclaimed that its > owners were specialists in 'waterfilters'. Urgh. On the other hand, the number of English words and phrases creeping into German usage have sparked at least one dictionary. From 'Advertising' to 'Zoom', Englisch im deutschen Wortschatz (Volk und Wissen Verlag GmBH, Berlin 1995) contains 168 pages of English expressions that the modern German speaker apparently can't do without. Perhaps one day we'll end up with Denglish? ---------------------- Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 From: Steve Rickaby, srickaby@wordmongers.demon.co.uk My posting wasn't intended to be derogatory towards Germans - some of my best clients are Germans ;-) If they can't cope without handfulls of English terms - well, who can? French and Welsh, to name but two, are littered with English forms. I once listened in fascination to a lady being interview on BBC Wales (I'm not a Welsh speaker) while through a blizzard of Celtic tripthons the words 'Doctor' and 'embarrassing complaint' rang through clearly. I merely cited the example because of German's unequalled ability to construct compound nouns. What baffles me is why it is done - where did the trend come from? It's everywhere now. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 25 Feb 2003 From: Victor Dewsbery, translation@dewsbery.de Steve Rickaby wrote: > If they can't cope without handfulls of English terms - well, > who can? Some Germans are not amused. One group of ardent linguistic conservatives (that calls itself the German Language Association) recently auctioned the German language on ebay (now there's a very German institution for you) claiming that it had been spoiled for proper use by the influx of foreign words and culture and is therefore in need of overhaul. But the successful bidder hasn't yet knocked on my door asking for royalties when I speak or write German (both of which I do extensively, both professionally and privately). > French and Welsh, to name but two, are littered with English > forms. I once listened in fascination to a lady being interview > on BBC Wales (I'm not a Welsh speaker) while through a blizzard > of Celtic tripthons the words 'Doctor' and 'embarrassing > complaint' rang through clearly. Ah, but the plot is more complicated yet. At the University of Wales in Bangor there were once some Welsh-speaking students from Chile (the Pategonian Welsh, I believe they are called, going back to some settlement in colonial times). They could converse well on a number of subjects with the Welsh Welsh, but they reached an impasse when anything technological was discussed, because the Welsh Welsh used words of English derivation, and the Pategonian Welsh drew their technical vocabulary from Spanish. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 25 Feb 2003 From: Odile Sullivan-Tarazi, odile@mindspring.com Steve Rickaby wrote: > What baffles me is why it is done - where did the trend come > from? It's everywhere now. I don't know that I've seen anything that explains it, but I'd always thought it came from, within the computer industry, the tendency of code (C++ and Java, at any rate) to fuse words and from, in general, the fusion of words in URLs and email addresses. Overall, in using email and the Internet, didn't people become accustomed to reading words without word spaces? Following that, maybe it seemed cool or trendy or techie to fuse words? I know for us, with doc that gets written and sent out the door so fast -- frequently with little or no editing, and sometimes written by developers themselves -- I've seen lots of strange text. Fused words are the least of it. In fact, wherever I've worked a good number of the developers have been nonnative speakers of English. This makes it easier, I think, for them to write (as I saw yesterday) words like "picklist." If that's what you use in the code, and code is a large part of what you do in English, that might well look like a fine and dandy word in its own right. As a writer or an editor in that environment, over the years you begin to become more and more accustomed to fused compounds -- especially those that appear with great frequency and regularity (like "startup" or now "markup") -- and when one or both of those two component pieces also tend to close up in general English, well then, before you know it, you've got a new word on your hands. Then, too, what's in the code or in the UI frequently has to be reproduced exactly (granted, sometimes with a font change to set it off), and it doesn't take much for the lines to become blurred. So, for instance, apparently in code the parameter is "username" and over the years I've watched this one-word version becoming more and more acceptable outside of code as well. It always crept into the UI, which was built and labeled by those developers (many of whom spoke nonnative English, and got quite a lot of their English primarily through technical channels), but I notice that no one in my current environment complains about it, even though the official line, as doc'd in both the Sun and Microsoft style guide, is still that it be spelled as two words. It is so very common for field labels to reproduce the element as it is named in the code. I'm sorry, perhaps I should explain _field_? It's an editable area in the UI where the user enters the appropriate information. Every field has a (usually brief) label that describes the nature of the info to be entered. So, you're entering the user's name into the field that will become, down closer to the machine, the "username" parameter. The label for the field will not be "user's name" or even "user name" but "username" as, to the developer, that's what the input is. It becomes the username entry in the code. (And what's all this fuss about one word or two words anyway?) That's how we come to have terms like "classpath," "datatype," "filename," "filetype," and "pathname" in the doc. And how easily those combine -- each portion is short and neat, some already exist in combination elsewhere (classroom, classwork, footpath, archetype, biotype). Along the lines, perhaps, of "toolkit" and "toolbox," there's that element in Windows environments called a "tooltip" (that's the designation given in "flyover," or "rollover," text) and so it becomes a tooltip in the natural language descriptions as well. There's a rollback operation, put into effect by a rollback parameter, so before you know it you're speaking in terms of performing "a rollback." There's a rowset property and a timestamp object; there are typesafe applications and so typesafety; there are databound text fields, standalone applications, lookup operations, and popup boxes. I'm mixing categories here, but some of these readily become nouns as well: a rowset, the timestamp, a lookup, a popup. Well, I've gone on far too long already about this, but it's so pervasive in the tech industry. And we're confronted regularly with new contenders for single-word status. It becomes difficult, sometimes, to know where to draw the line. Currently, for instance, we're using "checkbox" and "scrollbox" as single words, but are holding out on two words for "list box" and "spin box." Will this be the case in 2, 5, 7 years? Remember when "database" was "data base"? That looks so old-fashioned now! And so many of these fused compounds are looking more and more right. It's a little scary, and it's all on the move so quickly that while there are authoritative sources you can check, there's no one overarching authority, often no one right answer. It comes down to balancing, as best you can, how terms across the product (or in the environment) are being treated, to being as logical and consistent as possible, to following general principles as best you can, to keeping an eye on what everyone else in the industry is doing. And don't even get me started on capping! That's another constant hassle . . . ----------------------- Date: Tues, 25 Feb 2003 From: Steve Rickaby, srickaby@wordmongers.demon.co.uk ...lots of interesting stuff, with which I agree, although if your theory is true in its entirety there must be a lot of ex-software developers working as sign-writers ;-) I would only add one thing to your cogent remarks - they underline the case I've always made for authors being involved in user interface design. But I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness over this. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 25 Feb 2003 From: Odile Sullivan-Tarazi, odile@mindspring.com Well, no doubt I am seeing only part of the picture! Just seems there's been a strong trend in the direction of closing up words in the last decade or so, and it seems likely to me that the computer industry has had a hand in it. It would be interesting to read a study done on the trend, just for fun. We're several voices in the wilderness on many writerly issues, I think, but the bottom line is a harsh mistress. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 8.19 Admin page: < http://www.electriceditors.net/edline/admin.htm > ** 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) 2002--2003, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996--2003 Iain Brown Compilation (c) 2003 Iain Brown / The Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=