american english

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shailesh
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american english

Unread post by shailesh »

hello

i have just commenced work on the help and user manual for a software application.

the target audience is u.s. customers.

i have been specifically instructed to refrain using semicolons, dashes (-), the word viz., the word etc. or roman numerals (i., ii, ...) as it is deemed inappropriate for american english.

can anyone pl. tell me if this really is a norm?

shailesh
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Tim Green
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Re: american english

Unread post by Tim Green »

shailesh wrote:i have been specifically instructed to refrain using semicolons, dashes (-), the word viz., the word etc. or roman numerals (i., ii, ...) as it is deemed inappropriate for american english.

can anyone pl. tell me if this really is a norm?

shailesh
:?: :?: :?:

This is very odd, I don't know where they got it from. You might want to avoid the word viz and use American spelling, and Roman numerals might confuse a couple of old boys on the farm in the depths of Iowa or the Okeefenokee Swamp, but the rest is rubbish.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Eugene
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american english

Unread post by Eugene »

Most likely, these are the "limitations" from the Microsoft Manual of Stile.
Ann C.
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American English

Unread post by Ann C. »

This reply is a little late, but then, I've just joined the forum today. I read the rules with regards to user names not being acceptable if they are racist, etc. It would be nice if we could also refrain from categorizing people by specific section of the country as to intelligence and education. There are both smart and stupid people in every corner of the world. This from a Georgia native who has a lot of respect for those alligators in the swamp! :wink:
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Ann,

Sorry if I upset you, I was just being flippant. Also, pedantry of any kind also annoys me intensely, particularly uninformed pedantry, so I was just taking a cheap jibe at it. I should have thought of something better to do it with though... 8)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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TomHenehan
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Unread post by TomHenehan »

I'm an American, and I use semicolons and dashes all the time.

I realize that it's best to keep things simple and -- regardless of natonality -- generally use short simple sentences whenever possible, but some concepts are complex and require relatively complex explanations.

I'd say you'll be OK if you just use a spell checker configured for American English (e.g., "color" and "humor" rather than "colour" and "humour," etc.)
Tom Henehan
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Martin Wynne
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Unread post by Martin Wynne »

TomHenehan wrote:I'd say you'll be OK if you just use a spell checker configured for
American English (e.g., "color" and "humor" rather than "colour" and "humour," etc.)
Hi Tom,

I think that is the easy bit. The difficulties are in the words which mean different
things on each side of the pond. For example;

momentarily: lasting only briefly (UK); soon (US).

quite good: better than average but less than very good (UK); very good (US).

For a long time I've been looking for a resource listing these pitfalls specifically
for software writers, but never found anything.

Martin. (UK)
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Dean Whitlock
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

The issue of the dash is more a matter of typography. In the US, folks use the M-dash with no separation: "...this manual is bunk--but it's good bunk!" (replace the double-dash with an M-dash).

In the UK (and probably elsewhere), folks use the n-dash with separation: "...this manual is tripe - but it's quite good."

Speaking of cultural differences, what does "resp." mean? I've seen it used several times here in the various forums. In a couple of cases, it seemed to replace a slash, in others an e.g., and in others "in respect to" (where I would use a "re:" in the US).

thanks
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Dean,
Speaking of cultural differences, what does "resp." mean? I've seen it used several times here in the various forums.
This is a mistranslation from German, and it is common mistake for native German speakers writing in English. It originates from the German multipurpose non-word beziehungsweise, which is usually abbreviated to bzw.

In normal usge bzw. really means "'and or or or possibly both" -- or in plain English "one or both of these options may apply but I'm damned if I'm going to say which". As you can imagine, it's a word that politicians, marketing droids and a certain breed of lawyers are very much in love with. Several otherwise respectable German-English dictionaries stubbornly mistranslate it as meaning "respectively". Germans assume that this is correct and then proceed to use it in exactly the same way that they use bzw., abbreviating it in a similar fashion -- when I tell my clients that in English you have to be a little more clear when you are saying either/or they are frequently very unhappy. This mis-use is also perpetrated in print by generations of German translators, to the extent that it is in danger of becoming an established usage in its own right. I know that this is the way that languages develop, but I'm still opposing this little development tooth and nail.

There is one usage in which "respectively" is the correct translation ("The prices for chicken and ostrich eggs on the market in Nairobi were 6 cents and 15 dollars, respectively.") but this is no longer really the primary meaning of the word. As an aside, German actually has a surprisingly large number of elements, both words and constructs, that can be used to sound precise while actually being anything but.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Alexander Halser
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Unread post by Alexander Halser »

Tim is referring to my posts... :oops:
The "..., respectively." is one of my favorites. Thanks for the explanation, Tim!
Alexander Halser
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Van Swofford
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Unread post by Van Swofford »

Dean Whitlock wrote:The issue of the dash is more a matter of typography. In the US, folks use the M-dash with no separation: "...this manual is bunk--but it's good bunk!" (replace the double-dash with an M-dash).

In the UK (and probably elsewhere), folks use the n-dash with separation: "...this manual is tripe - but it's quite good."
Hey Dean,

I'm an old country boy from Tennessee, and I don't even know what an M-dash is - guess I've been using N-dashes all my life and didn't even know it was un-American. Blimey.....y'all. :lol:

Van
"Half of what I say is meaningless..." -- John Lennon
"Your job is to figure out which half" -- Van Swofford
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Dean Whitlock
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

You're not alone, Van. I only know because I got involved in composition and typography in one of my past careers and still do it occasionally.

The M-dash is a longer dash that is supposed to be the width of the capital letter M. On a mac, you can type it with Shift-Option-Hyphen (on the alpha keyboard). In Windows (Word, at least), use Alt-Ctrl-Minus (on the numeric keypad) or find it on the Special Characters tab in the Insert Symbol function.

The N-dash is a shorter dash that is supposed to be the width of the capital letter N. (This is still longer than the plain hyphen or minus sign.) Mac: Option-Hyphen. Windows: Ctrl-Minus.

This is one of those niggling details that style mavins snarl over. I'm in Vermont myself, but I prefer the look of the N-dash with spaces around it - Brit style - and use it in marketing materials, user manuals, etc. over which I have style control. But when I used it in the manuscript for my book, the publisher changed them all to the American usage. (And I probably should say US usage, because I'm pretty sure Canada follows the Brit style. South of the Border, I don't know). If they publish a British version (I should be so lucky), they'll just have to change them all back.

More than you wanted to know, I'm sure. :wink:
Tim Frost
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Unread post by Tim Frost »

It must be the names as well as the appearance that does not cross the Atlantic. Here in England I have never seen the names 'M-dash' and 'N-dash'. They are always 'em dash' and 'en dash'. An em is the name for a typographical unit which is a horizontal measurement equal to the point size of the type. An en is half the width of an em. An em in twelve-point type is twelve points, but this is not always nowadays the width of the letter 'M'.

Follow--ups to off--topic?
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Dean Whitlock
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

You are absolutely right that "em" and "en" are the original terms, and are still technically correct. (MS Word, in fact, uses em and en in the Insert Symbol function.) Using M and N is a rule of thumb I picked up somewhere to give an idea of the display width. I didn't realize it was a US thumb! It's not all that great a rule, either, as one look at the M and N in this typeface proves: they are nearly the same width. Thank you for bringing this back to basics. Van, listen to him, not me!
TomHenehan
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Unread post by TomHenehan »

I spent twenty years in the typography industry, and I'm still not clear about any rule differentiating the proper use of the em dash versus the en dash. That is to say, I have never been aware of the en-dash's reason for existence -- I've always used the em dash, with a word space before and after. (I just read in this forum that, in this regard, I've been following British usage, and that US usage is to eliminate the spaces. Let me offer the observaton that I learned otherwise in the US -- to wit, in New Orleans, LA.)

In any event, during my long career settng type, I've only used the en-dash when a particular typeface's em-dash was excessively long, to the point that it was visually unattractive. In such cases I would simply substitute the en for the em dash. I never used the two dashes for two different functions/uses. Should I have?

On a much less subtle level, I've found that many folks need to be taught the distinction between a dash, which indicates a separation and/or pause, and a hyphen, which has the opposite function of tying two words more closely together. Since it is so common to use the hyphen key (ideally, but not always, keyed twice) to generate a dash, putting wordspaces before and after the dash (em or en) clarifies this concept. You'd never put spaces before and after a properly-used hyphen.

One wrinkle I've recently observed in informal email/chatroom correspondance is the use of the tilde key ~ like this ~ to indicate a dash. I find it attractive, clear, and easy, and find myself using it quite frequently. (Note that I write exclusively in American English, a context wherein the tilde is not normally used for any other prupose.) I've only received criticism about this practice once, from someone who stressed that she did not object "personally" but who thought this new usage might be inappropriate in formal contexts. I think she was correct, and I am not yet ready to employ the tilde-as-dash in technical documentation, formal business correspondence, etc.
Tom Henehan
CompuVend, Inc.
Makers of DEX Buzz Box®
3322 Hessmer Avenue, Suite 201
Metairie, LA 70002
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