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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004Eats, Shoots & Leaves -- A first impression
[Emailed to Andrew Franklin of Profile Books, and posted to alt.usage.english.] Dear Sir, I opened all my Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, same as usual. As predicted, my brother had bought me the Christmas best-seller, _Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation_ by Lynne Truss. My first impressions, having read only the 34-page introductory chapter: 1. Shouldn't "Zero Tolerance" in the title bear a hyphen? 2. The next book should be titled _[Witty phrase]: The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Typography_. This one looks as if it was set on MS Word. 3. "Why don't we use capital letters for all nouns any more?" (p. 22). Did we ever, in modern English? Not as far as I know. 4. "There is a rumour that in parts of the Civil | Service workers have been pragmatically instructed to omit apostrophes..." (p. 27). If punctuation is supposed to aid clarity, wouldn't a comma after "Service" help, especially in view of the line break between "Civil" and "Service"? 5. "_Eats, Shoots & Leaves_ is not a book about grammar. I'm not a grammarian" (p. 32). Should be a semicolon between the clauses, _n'est ce pas_? 6. "A degree in English language is not a prerequisite for caring about where a bracket is preferred to a dash" (p. 32). I have tried to think of such a case, and failed. I think she meant "parenthesis". 7. Yes, it is possible to over-use the word "meanwhile", thank you! 8. Where am I supposed to place a book marked "Reference/ Humour", according to the Dewey Decimal system? Conclusion: I don't care if there are "issues"; this book does it for my kinky linguistic gene.  SignatureSimon R. Hughes [...] > 2. The next book should be titled _[Witty phrase]: The > Zero-Tolerance Approach to Typography_. This one looks > as if it was set on MS Word. [...] Major quibble, Simon: It's not _Word_'s fault -- it's the morons without any training in typography, cursed with a tin eye, and lacking all sense for aesthetics who produce visual garbage and should not be allowed access to *any* typesetting or word-processing equipment. Those cretins use "straight ticks" (" ') instead of "curly quotes" and genuine apostrophes, two hypens (--) instead of en- and em-dashes, have no idea about leading, kerning, and margins, mix six typefaces on one page, typeset books in Times Roman or other unsuited faces, and commit other atrocities. Even though I have fan$$$y typesetting programs, I use _Word_ exclusively (the ancient 1992 version 5.1 yet!) to typeset all my books and other publications. Their visual beauty has been praised by famous book-designer Gershon Legman, designers at Princeton University Press, and others who recognize a beautifully designed and typeset book when they see one. What, specifically, made you say, "This one looks as if it was set on MS Word"? SignatureReinhold (Rey) Aman Maledicta Press typesetter > [...] > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > all sense for aesthetics who produce visual garbage and should not be > allowed access to *any* typesetting or word-processing equipment. Add, perhaps, that they don't know how to use Word, if it's as good as you claim. > Those cretins use "straight ticks" (" ') instead of "curly quotes" and > genuine apostrophes, two hypens (--) instead of en- and em-dashes, have [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > and others who recognize a beautifully designed and typeset book when > they see one. Not that I need to learn typesetting, but I have found satisfaction in TeX, which I am still learning, and which is free; I would be loath to pay out for anything else. > What, specifically, made you say, "This one looks as if it was set on MS Word"? Two examples: 1. The wordspacing is uneven (a result of fully justified, large type on small pages), giving the text uneven colour. Pages 29 and 32 are the worst examples I have found so far (I'd scan the pages, but I don't have a scanner for this computer, yet). 2. The margins are the same for all pages, the left margin being greater than the right, on verso as well as recto. I'm sure a better-trained eye than mine would find more. To be fair, even I know how to do better on MS Word; my judgement was a little rash, perhaps. SignatureSimon R. Hughes > 1. The wordspacing is uneven (a result of fully justified, large > type on small pages) At times justified text is hideously ugly. I don't understand why so many feel compelled to use it. And I'm no fan of Bill Gates, but you can't blame someone's decision to justify the text on MS Word. > giving the text uneven colour. Pages 29 and > 32 are the worst examples I have found so far Sounds like a problem with the printing process to me. > 2. The margins are the same for all pages, the left margin being > greater than the right, on verso as well as recto. I'm not terribly familiar with Word, using it only for the most basic word processing, but I'd be shocked -- SHOCKED, I tell you -- if Word couldn't handle that situation you describe with a simple setting change. > I'm sure a better-trained eye than mine would find more. > > To be fair, even I know how to do better on MS Word; my judgement > was a little rash, perhaps. Agreed. SignatureDena Jo Delete "delete.this.for.email" for email. > At times justified text is hideously ugly. I don't understand why so > many feel compelled to use it. Because it enables the reader to see the paragraphs easily, without needing extra leading (whitespace) between them. SignatureMark Brader "The design of the lowercase e in text faces Toronto produces strong feelings (or should do so)." msb@vex.net -- Walter Tracy "Mark Brader" <msb@vex.net> wrote... > > At times justified text is hideously ugly. I don't understand why > > so many feel compelled to use it. > > Because it enables the reader to see the paragraphs easily, without > needing extra leading (whitespace) between them. I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space anyway. Full justification doesn't improve readability one iota, and it can diminish it severely in relatively narrow columns. Matti > "Mark Brader" <msb@vex.net> wrote... > > > At times justified text is hideously ugly. I don't understand why > > > so many feel compelled to use it. > > Because it enables the reader to see the paragraphs easily, without > > needing extra leading (whitespace) between them. > I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. Paragraphs > should always be separated by a little extra space anyway. Full > justification doesn't improve readability one iota, and it can diminish > it severely in relatively narrow columns. Examples can be devised to show that white space isn't always enough to make paragraph separation easily evident. What's needed to do the job right is indentation of the first line of a paragraph. Years ago in AUE, I was one of the very few people who regularly indented paragraph beginnings. Mark Israel was another. I eventually succumbed to peer pressure and quit indenting, but Mark continued to indent for a long time. Recent postings from him at alt.education.distance have indented paragraphs. However, the latest posting I find from him at Dejagoogle has no indentation (Message-ID: <998dfc9e.0311231454.5243ac83@posting.google.com>). For what it's worth, I find it interesting to read in that posting that Mark has moved from Massachusetts back to California. As for justification, a good place to compare the effects on readability and reading pleasure of right justification versus ragged-right format is one of Leon Uris's books. He uses one or the other depending upon whether the viewpoint of a chapter is first-person or omniscient-observer. (I think the book is _Trinity_, but it has been a decade or three since I read it.) By the way, note the improved clarity achieved by the above use of hyphens in "first-person" and "omniscient-observer" even though they're not used attributively. > I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. > Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space > anyway. Full justification doesn't improve readability one iota, > and it can diminish it severely in relatively narrow columns. And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a nonjustified one. Besides, even without skipping a line in between paragraphs, if one indents the first line of the paragraph, the reader has all the visual clues he needs. SignatureDena Jo Delete "delete.this.for.email" for email. >> I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. >> Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > indents the first line of the paragraph, the reader has all the visual > clues he needs. I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I like the blank line between paragraphs. I couldn't care less about indentations. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I like the blank line between paragraphs. > I couldn't care less about indentations. Me too. > I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I like the blank line between > paragraphs. I couldn't care less about indentations. I prefer the block style as well. SignatureDena Jo Delete "delete.this.for.email" for email. >> I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I like the blank line between >> paragraphs. I couldn't care less about indentations. > >I prefer the block style as well. That's a neat way of avoiding a "me, too" post. Signaturewrmst rgrds Robin Bignall Quiet part of Hertfordshire England >> Matti Lamprhey posted thus: >> [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I like the blank line between > paragraphs. I couldn't care less about indentations. I think it's a "rule" to have a blank line between typewritten or printed paragraphs -- or was when I was learning to type. Without that blank line, the text portion of a document looks very crowded. Indenting? It's optional AFAIK (unless you're following a specified style), and I choose the non-indent option almost always. For anything handwritten, no matter what style I use, my best bet is to send along a decoder or translation device of some kind. My penmanship is bad (that's "bad" as in "*really* bad"). Indenting or the use of extra space makes absolutely no difference in anything I've written by hand. By the way, studies have shown -- and I believe -- that "full justification" (FJ) is harder to read than flush left/ragged right. For (vertically) long paragraphs and/or wide columns, FJ is especially poor. You almost need to use a straightedge of some kind to keep your place. For very narrow columns, FJ is difficult to use without running the words together or having big gaps between them. SignatureMaria Conlon Please send any email to the Hot Mail address. > >> Matti Lamprhey posted thus: > >>> I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. > >>> Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space > >>> anyway. Full justification doesn't improve readability one iota, > >>> and it can diminish it severely in relatively narrow columns. > >> And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a > >> nonjustified one. > >> Besides, even without skipping a line in between paragraphs, if one > >> indents the first line of the paragraph, the reader has all the > >> visual clues he needs. > > I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I like the blank line between > > paragraphs. I couldn't care less about indentations. > I think it's a "rule" to have a blank line between typewritten or > printed paragraphs -- or was when I was learning to type. Without that > blank line, the text portion of a document looks very crowded. > Indenting? It's optional AFAIK (unless you're following a specified > style), and I choose the non-indent option almost always. > For anything handwritten, no matter what style I use, my best bet is to > send along a decoder or translation device of some kind. My penmanship > is bad (that's "bad" as in "*really* bad"). Indenting or the use of > extra space makes absolutely no difference in anything I've written by > hand. Okay, it seems it's time to once again give an example where white space is ambiguous with regard to whether or not a new paragraph has started: ===== Begin example: ===== I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native English speaker who made the following statement: An octopus has eight testicles. Further consideration leads me to realize that that statement could conceivably be correct. How many testicles *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? ===== End example ===== How many paragraphs are there in the above example? Note that when it's rewritten with indentation, there's no doubt that there's only one paragraph: ===== Begin rewrite: ===== I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native English speaker who made the following statement: An octopus has eight testicles. Further consideration leads me to realize that that statement could conceivably be correct: How many testicles *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? ===== End rewrite ===== > "Maria Conlon" said: >>>> Matti Lamprhey posted thus: >>>>> I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. >>>>> Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space [quoted text clipped - 58 lines] > > ===== End rewrite ===== True enough, but why would anyone care? I don't keep track of a paragraph count when I read. Is there something important that I'm missing? All I ask is that text be arranged for easy reading. In that regard, your two versions are equal. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ [...] >> Okay, it seems it's time to once again give an example where >> white space is ambiguous with regard to whether or not a new >> paragraph has started: [...] > True enough, but why would anyone care? I don't keep track of a paragraph > count when I read. Is there something important that I'm missing? All I > ask is that text be arranged for easy reading. In that regard, your two > versions are equal. It matters if you are quoting it; do you reproduce it as one or as three paragraphs? It becomes even more confusing if the third block is on the next page, and you are to quote on one. SignatureSimon R. Hughes > [...] > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > as three paragraphs? It becomes even more confusing if the third > block is on the next page, and you are to quote on one. Ah, but usually there are other ways to mark quoted text -- a different font or font size being a couple of options. Using only blank spaces to separate it from the rest of the text should be a last resort. Also, as Maria suggested, the blank lines could be of different height (lesser height) than the standard blank lines. As for reproducing quoted text, my thoughts are that the reproduction should match the original as closely as possible. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >> [...] >> [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > Ah, but usually there are other ways to mark quoted text -- a different font > or font size being a couple of options. Doesn't help the paragraphing. > Using only blank spaces to separate > it from the rest of the text should be a last resort. Most style guides will advise separation for a significant amount of quoted text. > Also, as Maria > suggested, the blank lines could be of different height (lesser height) than > the standard blank lines. As for reproducing quoted text, my thoughts are > that the reproduction should match the original as closely as possible. Should we then turn a page because the third block of Bob's example text appears on a new page? SignatureSimon R. Hughes >>> [...] >>> [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > Doesn't help the paragraphing. I don't care about paragraphing -- only the proper indication of the quoted portion. Paragraphing should remain as in the original of the quoted text. >> Using only blank spaces to separate >> it from the rest of the text should be a last resort. > > Most style guides will advise separation for a significant amount > of quoted text. Of course. I was talking about doing that, but saying that merely blank line separation might not be the best option if one is concerned with the proper identification of paragraphs (as if that were important). >> Also, as Maria >> suggested, the blank lines could be of different height (lesser [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Should we then turn a page because the third block of Bob's > example text appears on a new page? Only if you want to continue reading. Duh! If it is important (I don't know why it would be) to avoid the turning of pages while reading a certain portion of text, layout could become a problem, but I'm sure that with some ingenuity all quirky presentation ideas can be accommodated. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >> Should we then turn a page because the third block of Bob's >> example text appears on a new page? [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > problem, but I'm sure that with some ingenuity all quirky presentation ideas > can be accommodated. An example. Say you wish to quote this: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Phasellus luctus viverra dolor. Vivamus risus. Phasellus consectetuer. Donec sodales. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Fusce magna ipsum, dignissim a, vestibulum porttitor, vestibulum ut, massa. Sed non urna. Vivamus arcu felis, gravida eget, tristique quis, gravida ac, libero. Phasellus dignissim tellus a dolor. Aenean purus nisl, laoreet non, condimentum ac, tincidunt a, dolor. Nunc diam urna, gravida sed, faucibus et, aliquet eget, turpis. The paragraph is non-indented. However, the sentence "Phasellus dignissim tellus a dolor" begins on page two. Is it part of the same paragraph as the preceding bit, or is it a new paragraph? That quandary can be completely avoided by indenting paragraphs. SignatureSimon R. Hughes >>> Should we then turn a page because the third block of Bob's >>> example text appears on a new page? [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > same paragraph as the preceding bit, or is it a new paragraph? > That quandary can be completely avoided by indenting paragraphs. That condition exists in every book not using paragraph indentation when a new page is encountered, and it does not apply to quoted material only. So what? Does it rally matter to the reader whether the new page starts a new paragraph or not? Obviously, it does to the pedant, but then, how many of us would notice it? How many would think that it was a problem of some sort? The example above can be handled by total indentation, just as you did it, whether part of it is on a new page or not. In general, I see your point, but to me it is one of extremely minor importance. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > In general, I see your point, Thank &deity; for that. > but to me it is one of extremely minor > importance. Sure. Different strokes, and all that. SignatureSimon R. Hughes > An example. Say you wish to quote this: > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > dignissim tellus a dolor" begins on page two. Is it part of the > same paragraph as the preceding bit, or is it a new paragraph? Who cares? > That quandary can be completely avoided by indenting paragraphs. I still don't see a quandary here. SignatureRob Bannister > > [...] > >>> Okay, it seems it's time to once again give an example where > >>> white space is ambiguous with regard to whether or not a new > >>> paragraph has started: > > [...] > >> True enough, but why would anyone care? I don't keep track of a > >> paragraph count when I read. Is there something important that I'm > >> missing? All I ask is that text be arranged for easy reading. In > >> that regard, your two versions are equal. > > It matters if you are quoting it; do you reproduce it as one or > > as three paragraphs? It becomes even more confusing if the third > > block is on the next page, and you are to quote on one. > Ah, but usually there are other ways to mark quoted text -- a different font > or font size being a couple of options. Using only blank spaces to separate > it from the rest of the text should be a last resort. Also, as Maria > suggested, the blank lines could be of different height (lesser height) than > the standard blank lines. As for reproducing quoted text, my thoughts are > that the reproduction should match the original as closely as possible. But Usenet posting has none of the options you and Maria have mentioned. They're pie in the sky in a forum where HTML is not acceptable. Even if they were available, I doubt that I would go to all that trouble to distinguish a quotation just to avoid the simple, conventional practice of indenting the beginning of a paragraph. By the way, when I used to work I went through a period when I was a strong advocate of outdenting. I had decided that it was so important to show where a new paragraph began that it wasn't sufficient to merely indent. I abandoned my crusade after a few failures to persuade department secretaries to type the stuff the way I had written it. Anyway, in Usenet, outdenting would end up with a mess because of the line folding that occurs after a nested sequence of attributions. > "Skitt" said: >> Ah, but usually there are other ways to mark quoted text -- a >> different font or font size being a couple of options. Using only [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > quotation just to avoid the simple, conventional practice of > indenting the beginning of a paragraph. Oh, true. I was not talking about Usenet. I don't think that Usenet posting is ever formal, so trying to follow some rules that very few know is very much overdoing something. > By the way, when I used to work I went through a period > when I was a strong advocate of outdenting. I had [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > because of the line folding that occurs after a > nested sequence of attributions. Interesting. It sure sets off the paragraphs. I like it, but not on Usenet. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > > Ah, but usually there are other ways to mark quoted text -- a different font > > or font size being a couple of options. Using only blank spaces to separate [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > quotation just to avoid the simple, conventional practice of > indenting the beginning of a paragraph. I usually just put the quoted material in quotation marks and that should be adequate. If the quoted material itself includes quotations, or if the spirit just moves me to do so, I indent the totality of the quoted material, thus: I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native English speaker who made the following statement: An octopus has eight testicles. Further consideration leads me to realize that that statement could conceivably be correct. How many testicles *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? Other devices are possible, such as the one you yourself used in presenting the above example, preceding it with ===== Begin example: ===== and following it with ===== End example =====, which are readily converted to begin and end quotation. SignatureJohn Varela (Trade "OLD" lamps for "NEW" for email.) I apologize for munging the address but the spam is too much. >By the way, when I used to work I went through a period > when I was a strong advocate of outdenting. I had [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > because of the line folding that occurs after a > nested sequence of attributions. The habit of outsenting paragraphs is the mark of a Cobol programmer - which I don't think Sparky was, but he might have been. There are thousands of people out there of an age recently qualified to join the AARP (and older) who developed this habit and found it very hard to give up. Jitze [Snipped, sorry! I just happened to see this; Bob's posting disappeared from my server.] > > By the way, when I used to work I went through a period > > when I was a strong advocate of outdenting. ^^^^^^^^^^ For the professional typesetter, there's no such thing as "outdenting" (as the opposite of "indenting"), despite 884 Google hits. The correct technical terms are: - hanging indent (= standard; most common) - hanging indentation - reverse indentation - hanging paragraph. *Hanging indents* are most frequently used in dictionaries, glossaries, bibliographies, and other reference works. The lemmata (words or phrases) are set in bold, so that the reader can quickly find them. [RA] SignatureReinhold (Rey) Aman http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/contents13.html > [Snipped, sorry! I just happened to see this; Bob's posting disappeared > from my server.] > > > By the way, when I used to work I went through a period > > > when I was a strong advocate of outdenting. ^^^^^^^^^^ > For the professional typesetter, there's no such thing as "outdenting" > (as the opposite of "indenting"), despite 884 Google hits. > The correct technical terms are: > - hanging indent (= standard; most common) > - hanging indentation > - reverse indentation > - hanging paragraph. Thank you. I find that interesting to learn. I see now that the _New Shorter Oxford_ has most of those terms and also "hanging indention". Merriam-Webster's dictionaries have only "hanging indention". As I recall, "outdenting" was a spontaneous coinage on my part, intended to be somewhat playful in the same spirit as that of "inskirts" as opposed to the outskirts of a city, or "outcome" as opposed to income when speaking of cash flow. (Yes, "outgo" is the customary -- nonplayful -- opposite of "income".) Many years ago I had an uncle who liked to say -- about quitting smoking, for example -- that he had plenty of willpower: what he needed was "won't power". [ . . . ] > As I recall, "outdenting" was a spontaneous coinage on my > part, intended to be somewhat playful in the same spirit as > that of "inskirts" as opposed to the outskirts of a city, > or "outcome" as opposed to income when speaking of cash > flow. "Caffeinated" as opposed to "decaffeinated" coffee. Strange to see, a straight-faced definition of "caffeinated" is in _Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Eleventh Edition_ (but not in the tenth edition): 2 : containing caffeine *caffeinated coffee* This would imply that coffee would not contain caffeine in it's original state, but would contain caffeine only after it had been caffeinated. } On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 14:16:29 GMT, Bob Cunningham } <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> said: } } [ . . . ] } }> As I recall, "outdenting" was a spontaneous coinage on my }> part, intended to be somewhat playful in the same spirit as }> that of "inskirts" as opposed to the outskirts of a city, }> or "outcome" as opposed to income when speaking of cash }> flow. } } "Caffeinated" as opposed to "decaffeinated" coffee. } } Strange to see, a straight-faced definition of "caffeinated" } is in _Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Eleventh } Edition_ (but not in the tenth edition): } } 2 : containing caffeine *caffeinated coffee* } } This would imply that coffee would not contain caffeine in } it's original state, but would contain caffeine only after } it had been caffeinated. I can't wait until you get started on "pitted dates". SignatureR. J. Valentine <mailto:ameliabedelia@wicked.smart.net> > } On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 14:16:29 GMT, Bob Cunningham > } <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> said: [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > I can't wait until you get started on "pitted dates". Not the same thing. Pitted dates have the pits taken out. Caffeinated coffee has the caffeine left in. I can see Bob's point. Usually "-ate" means "supply with" or some such. But "caffeinated" was created by chopping off the "de-" of "decaffeinated". It has more in common with the pairs like gruntled/disgruntled and heveled/disheveled, I suppose, than with other "-ate" and "-ated" words. SignatureRuthfully -- Donna Richoux trio@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote on 03 Jan 2004: [...] > I can see Bob's point. Usually "-ate" means "supply with" or some > such. But "caffeinated" was created by chopping off the "de-" of > "decaffeinated". It has more in common with the pairs like > gruntled/disgruntled and heveled/disheveled, I suppose, I think that ought to be "cheveled/disheveled" or "sheveled/disheveled" seeing as how it comes from "de" + "cheveler". > than with other "-ate" and "-ated" words. SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor. [ . . . ] > I can see Bob's point. Usually "-ate" means "supply with" or some such. > But "caffeinated" was created by chopping off the "de-" of > "decaffeinated". Yes, it's a back formation, but I think of it as having been originally a jocular back formation. That's the way I took it the first time I heard it. And that's why I find it curious to see it treated seriously in _Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Eleventh Edition_. > It has more in common with the pairs like > gruntled/disgruntled and heveled/disheveled, I suppose, than with other > "-ate" and "-ated" words. I also took "gruntled" to be a jocular back formation the first time I heard it. In fact, the guy who said it to me (in the late 1940s) obviously meant it to be taken as a joke. The first occurrence cited in the online _Oxford English Dictionary_ is 1938 WODEHOUSE Code of Woosters i. 9 He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. I have no doubt at all that Wodehouse intended that to be an amusing play on words. As for "disheveled", the etymology "Anglo-French deschevel*, from des- dis- + chevoil hair" suggests that the back formation should be "sheveled", not "heveled". "Disheveled" is like "dis-sheveled" with assimilation of the two sibilants. Anyway, I regard "sheveled" as another jocular back formation. > "Caffeinated" as opposed to "decaffeinated" coffee. > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > it's original state, but would contain caffeine only after > it had been caffeinated. It doesn't seem so strange to me. It's a straightforward extension from "caffeinated beverages" like Coke, which has caffeine as a listed ingredient, to any beverage containing caffeine, whether added specifically or coming along with another ingredient. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |Politicians are like compost--they 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |should be turned often or they start Palo Alto, CA 94304 |to smell bad. kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ > > "Caffeinated" as opposed to "decaffeinated" coffee. > > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > ingredient, to any beverage containing caffeine, whether added > specifically or coming along with another ingredient. Hmm. That seems temptingly logical, except that I don't think people in general use "caffeinated" like that. Children at our little village school are used to answering the telephone, and greeting visitors, and all that kind of thing. The head teacher when my children were there took certain measures against her coffee habit, but was hospitality itself, and found it amusing that if a visitor came through the door, be it the Vicar, an inspector, or whoever else, one of her senior class would leap up and say "Caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee? Or would you prefer tea?" I don't think our children were at all aware that Coke could be described as "a caffeinated beverage": I got the impression they had formed the word "caffeinated" quite independently. Mike. > > It doesn't seem so strange to me. It's a straightforward > > extension from "caffeinated beverages" like Coke, which has [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Hmm. That seems temptingly logical, except that I don't think people > in general use "caffeinated" like that. Even so, I suspect that it's the historical route. I'm far more familiar with "caffeinated beverages" than with "caffeinated coffee". Google shows "caffeinated beverage(s)" 33,950 "caffeinated coffee" 5,870 > Children at our little village school are used to answering the > telephone, and greeting visitors, and all that kind of thing. The [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > and say "Caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee? Or would you prefer > tea?" That seems strange to me. While I think I may have heard of people referring to "caffeinated coffee", I'm pretty sure I've never heard it offered. The question would be "Coffee?" and upon an affirmative answer, the follow-up question would be "Regular or decaf?" > I don't think our children were at all aware that Coke could be > described as "a caffeinated beverage": I got the impression they had > formed the word "caffeinated" quite independently. Quite possibly. But are you sure that they're sure that the caffeine in coffee *isn't* added in some processing step? SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |Its like grasping the difference 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |between what one usually considers Palo Alto, CA 94304 |a 'difficult' problem, and what |*is* a difficult problem. The day kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |one understands *why* counting all (650)857-7572 |the molecules in the Universe isn't |difficult...there's the leap. http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | Tina Marie Holmboe > > > It doesn't seem so strange to me. It's a straightforward > > > extension from "caffeinated beverages" like Coke, which has [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > "caffeinated beverage(s)" 33,950 > "caffeinated coffee" 5,870 I can't argue at all; but I still wonder if Joe Public refers to Coca-Cola as a "caffeinated beverage", or is even aware of the expression. [...] > > The > > head teacher when my children were there [...] found it [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > offered. The question would be "Coffee?" and upon an affirmative > answer, the follow-up question would be "Regular or decaf?" We thought it worthy of notice at the time, and I think we concluded that it was just a chance local idiosyncrasy. > > I don't think our children were at all aware that Coke could be > > described as "a caffeinated beverage": I got the impression they had > > formed the word "caffeinated" quite independently. > > Quite possibly. But are you sure that they're sure that the caffeine > in coffee *isn't* added in some processing step? No, I can't be sure in the least; but I think the children knew well enough that the decaff version was "more processed" than the regular. If they'd been thinking about it any detail, they'd probably have realized that if one version had been artificially "caffeinated", then the other would have been called "uncaffeinated" rather than "decaffeinated". What their thought-processes actually were, I shall never know. Mike. >> 2 : containing caffeine *caffeinated coffee* >> [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > ingredient, to any beverage containing caffeine, whether added > specifically or coming along with another ingredient. Indeed, just as natural as hydrated potatoes, which contain water as part of the ingredient "potato". Oliver C. > >> 2 : containing caffeine *caffeinated coffee* > >> This would imply that coffee would not contain caffeine in > >> it's original state, but would contain caffeine only after > >> it had been caffeinated. > > It doesn't seem so strange to me. It's a straightforward extension > > from "caffeinated beverages" like Coke, which has caffeine as a listed > > ingredient, to any beverage containing caffeine, whether added > > specifically or coming along with another ingredient. > Indeed, just as natural as hydrated potatoes, which contain water as > part of the ingredient "potato". And "composed granite", the sort of rock that's found in abundance in the Rocky Mountains, as opposed to "decomposed granite", a material that is fairly commonly found in the Santa Monica Mountains and that can be dug into easily with a pick after it has been exposed to the air for some time but is "as hard as a rock" where it has been shielded from the air. So far as I know, "composed granite" is a back formation that hasn't been formed before now, but there's no reason it shouldn't be if "caffeinated coffee" is accepted. The term "decomposed granite" is well-known to people in the building industry. > >By the way, when I used to work I went through a period > > when I was a strong advocate of outdenting. I had > > decided that it was so important to show where a new > > paragraph began that it wasn't sufficient to merely > > indent. > >I abandoned my crusade after a few failures to persuade > > department secretaries to type the stuff the way I > > had written it. > >Anyway, in Usenet, outdenting would end up with a mess > > because of the line folding that occurs after a > > nested sequence of attributions. > The habit of outsenting paragraphs is the mark of a > Cobol programmer - which I don't think Sparky was, but > he might have been. I've written exactly one Cobol program in my life. It was an exercise in a programming course where we had to implement the same program in Cobol, Fortran, PL/I, and Algol (that was long before C and Ada became popular), then write an essay analyzing the comparative plusses and minuses of the languages. That was long after I went through my outdenting phase. > There are thousands of people out there of an age recently > qualified to join the AARP (and older) who developed this habit > and found it very hard to give up. I have only bad memories of my limited Cobol encounter. In particular I resented having to express operations by writing long terms in full. I'm thankful that I never had to use Cobol long enough to acquire any habits from it. I learned later that others had apparently shared my resentment of the mandatory long terms, and had devised a preprocessor called something like "Rapid Write" to circumvent them. But I found out about that too late to help with my single, painful Cobol experience. couperus@znet.eschew-spam.com spake thus: > >By the way, when I used to work I went through a period > > when I was a strong advocate of outdenting. I had [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Cobol programmer - which I don't think Sparky was, but > he might have been. I find this hard to believe. I never saw anybody transfer layout habits from COBOL to English (and I've seen a great deal of COBOL). > There are thousands of people out there of an age recently > qualified to join the AARP (and older) who developed this habit > and found it very hard to give up. SignatureDavid ===== > [...] > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > as three paragraphs? It becomes even more confusing if the third > block is on the next page, and you are to quote on one. I'm beginning to see a positive side to plagiarism. >> [...] >> [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > I'm beginning to see a positive side to plagiarism. I'm missing something. SignatureSimon R. Hughes > >> [...] > >> [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > I'm missing something. Being that it's a comment from me, you ain't missing much. Writers concerned with proper attributions may be discommoded by the problem described. A writer not interested in attributions has no such concerns. >>>> It matters if you are quoting it; do you reproduce it as one or >>>> as three paragraphs? It becomes even more confusing if the third [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Being that it's a comment from me, you ain't missing much. You've been reading that J. J. Lodder, again. > Writers > concerned with proper attributions may be discommoded by the problem > described. A writer not interested in attributions has no such concerns. Gotcha. 'Twas late of an evening last night. SignatureSimon R. Hughes > > "Maria Conlon" said: > >>>> Matti Lamprhey posted thus: > >>>>> I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. > >>>>> Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space > >>>>> anyway. Full justification doesn't improve readability one iota, > >>>>> and it can diminish it severely in relatively narrow columns. > >>>> And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a > >>>> nonjustified one. > >>>> Besides, even without skipping a line in between paragraphs, if one > >>>> indents the first line of the paragraph, the reader has all the > >>>> visual clues he needs. > >>> I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I like the blank line between > >>> paragraphs. I couldn't care less about indentations. > >> I think it's a "rule" to have a blank line between typewritten or > >> printed paragraphs -- or was when I was learning to type. Without > >> that blank line, the text portion of a document looks very crowded. > >> Indenting? It's optional AFAIK (unless you're following a specified > >> style), and I choose the non-indent option almost always. > >> For anything handwritten, no matter what style I use, my best bet is > >> to send along a decoder or translation device of some kind. My > >> penmanship is bad (that's "bad" as in "*really* bad"). Indenting or > >> the use of extra space makes absolutely no difference in anything > >> I've written by hand. > > Okay, it seems it's time to once again give an example where > > white space is ambiguous with regard to whether or not a new > > paragraph has started: > > ===== Begin example: ===== > > I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native > > English speaker who made the following statement: > > An octopus has eight testicles. > > Further consideration leads me to realize that that > > statement could conceivably be correct. How many testicles > > *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? > > ===== End example ===== > > How many paragraphs are there in the above example? > > Note that when it's rewritten with indentation, there's no > > doubt that there's only one paragraph: > > ===== Begin rewrite: ===== > > I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native > > English speaker who made the following statement: > > An octopus has eight testicles. > > Further consideration leads me to realize that that > > statement could conceivably be correct: How many testicles > > *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? > > ===== End rewrite ===== > True enough, but why would anyone care? That's for those to answer who care. One or more people have implied that the start of a paragraph may be indicated by preceding it with white space. If they meant only that text can be made more pleasant to read by breaking it up to some extent in blocks separated by white space, then they shouldn't call it paragraphing. There are reasons for paragraphing text; those reasons are discussed in style guides. There's a nutshell statement in an article at http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html : The beginning of each paragraph is a signal to [the reader] that a new step in the development of the subject has been reached. A discussion of paragraphing at http://www.bartleby.com/68/6/4406.html starts off with A paragraph is a unit of prose a sentence or more in length, logically cohesive and set off in writing by its indented first line. It's obviously a matter of judgement on the part of the writer what constitutes a "new step in the development of the subject" or when a sequence of sentences is "logically cohesive", but it's clear that there's more to paragraphing than making the text appear more inviting. > I don't keep track of a paragraph > count when I read. Is there something important that I'm missing? All I > ask is that text be arranged for easy reading. In that regard, your two > versions are equal. So the remarks I've made above apply quite well to you (and to Maria). > Skitt said: >>> Okay, it seems it's time to once again give an example where >>> white space is ambiguous with regard to whether or not a new [quoted text clipped - 36 lines] > have implied that the start of a paragraph may be indicated > by preceding it with white space. Yes -- a blank line (and, possibly, indenting). I think all of us who mentioned paragraphs are in favor of some visual indication of where a new paragraph begins. >....If they meant only that > text can be made more pleasant to read by breaking it up to > some extent in blocks separated by white space, then they > shouldn't call it paragraphing. I doubt that that's all anyone meant. I would guess that we all know what a paragraph is and what purpose it serves. > There are reasons for paragraphing text; those reasons are > discussed in style guides. There's a nutshell statement in [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > cohesive", but it's clear that there's more to paragraphing > than making the text appear more inviting. I don't think anyone said that, Bob. Merely making the text "inviting" is not what was suggested. *Readability* was the point. Without the presentation being easily readable, any indenting, outdenting, and separation could be for nothing. Think in terms of long paragraphs: with full justification (which we were discussing), you end up with something very difficult to wade through. >> I don't keep track of a paragraph >> count when I read. Is there something important that I'm missing? [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > So the remarks I've made above apply quite well to you (and > to Maria). I'm not so sure. You seem to be missing (or dissing) the points that were made about readability in an attempt to show that some who commented here do not know what a paragraph is and how it should be set apart from the previous and following paragraphs. You also asked about the number of paragraphs we saw in your example, as if the number was the important thing. Now, it seems that what you really wanted to know is whether we can recognize where a paragraph ought to begin and end. The example, by the way, was not suited to this medium. What with the >>>s and the unpredictability of tabs when using plain text, the correctness of the example gets harder and harder to judge with each passing follow-up. Readability and suitability to the medium being used are important, Bob. They are probably not as important as clear thinking and good construction of paragraphs (areas in which you excel), but they are necessary nonetheless. SignatureMaria Conlon Please send any email to the Hot Mail address. > > Skitt said: > >>> Okay, it seems it's time to once again give an example where > >>> white space is ambiguous with regard to whether or not a new > >>> paragraph has started: > >>> ===== Begin example: ===== > >>> I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native > >>> English speaker who made the following statement: > >>> An octopus has eight testicles. > >>> Further consideration leads me to realize that that > >>> statement could conceivably be correct. How many testicles > >>> *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? > >>> ===== End example ===== > >>> How many paragraphs are there in the above example? > >>> Note that when it's rewritten with indentation, there's no > >>> doubt that there's only one paragraph: > >>> ===== Begin rewrite: ===== > >>> I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native > >>> English speaker who made the following statement: > >>> An octopus has eight testicles. > >>> Further consideration leads me to realize that that > >>> statement could conceivably be correct: How many testicles > >>> *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? > >>> ===== End rewrite ===== > >> True enough, but why would anyone care? > > That's for those to answer who care. One or more people > > have implied that the start of a paragraph may be indicated > > by preceding it with white space. > Yes -- a blank line (and, possibly, indenting). I think all of us who > mentioned paragraphs are in favor of some visual indication of where a > new paragraph begins. But my point is that if white space alone is relied upon to indicate the beginning of a new paragraph, there will be cases where it won't be a sufficient indication. > >....If they meant only that > > text can be made more pleasant to read by breaking it up to > > some extent in blocks separated by white space, then they > > shouldn't call it paragraphing. > I doubt that that's all anyone meant. I would guess that we all know > what a paragraph is and what purpose it serves. I question the validity of your "all". I'm sure a lot of posters know, but I would guess a lot more may not. > > There are reasons for paragraphing text; those reasons are > > discussed in style guides. There's a nutshell statement in > > an article at http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html : > > The beginning of each paragraph is a signal to [the > > reader] that a new step in the development of the > > subject has been reached. > > A discussion of paragraphing at > > http://www.bartleby.com/68/6/4406.html starts off with > > A paragraph is a unit of prose a sentence or more > > in length, logically cohesive and set off in > > writing by its indented first line. > > It's obviously a matter of judgement on the part of the > > writer what constitutes a "new step in the development of > > the subject" or when a sequence of sentences is "logically > > cohesive", but it's clear that there's more to paragraphing > > than making the text appear more inviting. > I don't think anyone said that, Bob. Merely making the text "inviting" > is not what was suggested. I didn't suggest that it was suggested. We're discussing the question of why a block of text is preceded by white space. Some people have made it clear they don't care whether or not that block of text is to be taken as the beginning of a new paragraph. It follows that they must attach only some other importance to the white space. The only importance I can think of that they have in mind is to make the text more readable or more inviting, which are essentially two ways of saying the same thing. If you have two possibilities, A and B, and you eliminate A, then all you have left is B. When people imply that they don't care whether or not they can tell that the writer intended a new paragraph to start, they further imply that they don't attach any significance to paragraphing. > *Readability* was the point. Without the > presentation being easily readable, any indenting, outdenting, and > separation could be for nothing. Think in terms of long paragraphs: with > full justification (which we were discussing), you end up with something > very difficult to wade through. I wouldn't draw a clear distinction between readability and invitingness. > >> I don't keep track of a paragraph > >> count when I read. Is there something important that I'm missing? > >> All I ask is that text be arranged for easy reading. In that > >> regard, your two versions are equal. > > So the remarks I've made above apply quite well to you (and > > to Maria). > I'm not so sure. You seem to be missing (or dissing) the points that > were made about readability in an attempt to show that some who > commented here do not know what a paragraph is and how it should be set > apart from the previous and following paragraphs. > You also asked about the number of paragraphs we saw in your example, as > if the number was the important thing. Yes, I did use a misleadingly indirect way of making my point. As I've explained in another posting, the farthest thing from my mind was to imply that there was any necessity to count paragraphs when reading. > Now, it seems that what you > really wanted to know is whether we can recognize where a paragraph > ought to begin and end. That's the only essential point I ever wanted to make in this thread. I would rephrase your statement slightly, though, to say not "where a paragraph [*]ought[*] to begin and end", but where the writer *does* begin and end the paragraph. There's an important difference between breaking up a piece into paragraphs and breaking it up into mere blocks of text that are separated for reasons other than paragraphing. > The example, by the way, was not suited to this medium. What with the > >>>s and the unpredictability of tabs when using plain text, the > correctness of the example gets harder and harder to judge with each > passing follow-up. That's because people don't bother to adjust line lengths to avoid messy line wrapping. I, for one, often do so. When I'm truly interested in what a poster is saying, I'll often adjust line lengths to eliminate wrapping fragments before I make a serious attempt to understand what the previous writers have been saying. Anyway, it's not fully as true as it seems at first glance. With successive attributions, each line in the example would have the same number of ">"s. It's only the wrapped fragments that degrade the readability. And please note that in the example as it's quoted in this posting, there are four levels of attribution, but there's no degradation in the point of the example. > Readability and suitability to the medium being used are important, Bob. > They are probably not as important as clear thinking and good > construction of paragraphs (areas in which you excel), but they are > necessary nonetheless. You're preaching to the choir. I didn't say readability was any less important than anything else. My point, again, was only that if for any reason you want to signal that a new paragraph has begun, then preceding it with white space is not a sufficiently reliable indication. [example snipped] >>>How many paragraphs are there in the above example? >>True enough, but why would anyone care? > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > in length, logically cohesive and set off in > writing by its indented first line. The inclusion of 'indented first line' demonstrates that this is dated. > It's obviously a matter of judgement on the part of the > writer what constitutes a "new step in the development of > the subject" or when a sequence of sentences is "logically > cohesive", but it's clear that there's more to paragraphing > than making the text appear more inviting. Certainly, but if one only started a new paragraph when signalling a 'new step', some paragraphs would end up unreadably long. Especially, in emails, where short, even one-sentence paragraphs, are quite common. I find long paragraphs on-screen very off-putting, although I'm quite happy to read them in a book. On the other hand, books use other devices like a line of asterisks, a larger number of blank lines, drop caps, etc. to introduce a 'new step'. >>I don't keep track of a paragraph >>count when I read. Is there something important that I'm missing? All I >>ask is that text be arranged for easy reading. In that regard, your two >>versions are equal. You still haven't answered this question. The paragraph count seems quite immaterial. SignatureRob Bannister > [example snipped] [example restored:] ===== Begin example: ===== I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native English speaker who made the following statement: An octopus has eight testicles. Further consideration leads me to realize that that statement could conceivably be correct. How many testicles *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? ===== End example ===== How many paragraphs are there in the above example? Note that when it's rewritten with indentation, there's no doubt that there's only one paragraph: ===== Begin rewrite: ===== I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native English speaker who made the following statement: An octopus has eight testicles. Further consideration leads me to realize that that statement could conceivably be correct: How many testicles *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? ===== End rewrite ===== If the writer is one who follows normal paragraphing conventions, and if he or she intended to start a new paragraph after the quotation, the word "Further" would be indented. Since it isn't, it follows that "Further" is not intended to start a new paragraph. > >>>How many paragraphs are there in the above example? > >>True enough, but why would anyone care? > > That's for those to answer who care. One or more people > > have implied that the start of a paragraph may be indicated > > by preceding it with white space. If they meant only that > > text can be made more pleasant to read by breaking it up to > > some extent in blocks separated by white space, then they > > shouldn't call it paragraphing. > > There are reasons for paragraphing text; those reasons are > > discussed in style guides. There's a nutshell statement in > > an article at http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html : > > The beginning of each paragraph is a signal to [the > > reader] that a new step in the development of the > > subject has been reached. > > A discussion of paragraphing at > > http://www.bartleby.com/68/6/4406.html starts off with > > A paragraph is a unit of prose a sentence or more > > in length, logically cohesive and set off in > > writing by its indented first line. > The inclusion of 'indented first line' demonstrates that this is dated. That's not at all true. In both British and American recent publications I find indention to be normal practice. One exception I've learned from looking at background for this thread is that the *first* paragraph of a text, or the first paragraph following a title, is not normally indented. > > It's obviously a matter of judgement on the part of the > > writer what constitutes a "new step in the development of > > the subject" or when a sequence of sentences is "logically > > cohesive", but it's clear that there's more to paragraphing > > than making the text appear more inviting. > Certainly, but if one only started a new paragraph when signalling a > 'new step', some paragraphs would end up unreadably long. Especially, in > emails, where short, even one-sentence paragraphs, are quite common. > I find long paragraphs on-screen very off-putting, although I'm quite > happy to read them in a book. But I seem to remember someone posting in this thread to say they dislike the choppy effect of short paragraphs. > On the other hand, books use other devices > like a line of asterisks, a larger number of blank lines, drop caps, > etc. to introduce a 'new step'. You're twisting the meaning of "new step" well away from what the writer clearly intended. He obviously wasn't referring to a substantial change of subject. > >>I don't keep track of a paragraph > >>count when I read. Is there something important that I'm missing? All I > >>ask is that text be arranged for easy reading. In that regard, your two > >>versions are equal. > You still haven't answered this question. Oh, but I have. You've quoted my answer, which was, in answer to "True enough, but why would anyone care?", "That's for those to answer who care". That is, those who care presumably know why they care. I took neither a position of caring nor of not caring. My point was that if people care enough to say that they use white space to signal the start of a paragraph, then they should be interested in an example showing that that's not a reliable signal. I prepared an example to show how it could fail. My question "How many paragraphs are there?" wasn't meant to imply anything so silly as that people should count paragraphs as they read. It was merely another way of saying that unless the writer could be depended upon to be following normal paragraphing convention, there was no way to tell whether the text following the quote did or did not constitute a new paragraph. I've run across another example in one of the style guides: If all you have to go on to tell that a new paragraph has started is the white space that precedes it, consider the case where a page ends with a sentence whose end is near the right margin: How do you know whether the text at the top of the next page does or does not begin a paragraph? I can see that that question will lead some people to ask again, "Who cares?" That will mark them as being among those who don't seem to care about the significance of paragraphing. > I've run across another example in one of the style > guides: If all you have to go on to tell that a new [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > those who don't seem to care about the significance of > paragraphing. Well, I'm still tempted to say it, but you've brought up another interesting point: one that has often struck me during the interminable thread about punctuation. Line breaks and, even more so, page breaks, do have a considerable influence on one's reading of a text. I found a really good example recently where a line break caused me to misread something, but I didn't post it at the time and now I've lost it. However, they do have an effect and it can sometimes be confusing - paricularly in those dialogues where the author omits the 'he said - she said' part or where more than 2 are speaking or worse when the speech is paragraphed with that confusing convention that insists on quotation marks at the beginning of a new paragraph even though it's the same speaker. (This was a particularly poor paragraph on my part. I am duly ashamed.) SignatureRob Bannister > Maria Conlon said: > [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > > How many paragraphs are there in the above example? What difference does it make? (That's an actual question, not a smart-alecky remark.) > Note that when it's rewritten with indentation, there's no > doubt that there's only one paragraph: [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? > ===== End rewrite ===== Whether the sample is one paragraph or two or three does not matter as far as readability goes. There is enough white space to eliminate the "crowded" look and make the text easy to read. With readability being the important point (for me, at least), I don't see how the number of paragraphs matters. Unless... well, unless the writer/typist breaks things up too much, making it a rather unattractive bunch of small copy blocks -- clumps of type, if you will. Another point: making it one paragraph _visually_ is easily done. Empty lines within a paragraph (such as above) needn't all be the same height as the empty lines between paragraphs. Of course, if the teacher/instructor said "write three paragraphs about an octopus," I suppose it would behoove one to make it clear that there are three of them. SignatureMaria Conlon Please send any email to the Hot Mail address. > > Maria Conlon said: > >>> I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I like the blank line between > >>> paragraphs. I couldn't care less about indentations. > >> I think it's a "rule" to have a blank line between typewritten or > >> printed paragraphs -- or was when I was learning to type. Without > >> that blank line, the text portion of a document looks very crowded. > >> Indenting? It's optional AFAIK (unless you're following a specified > >> style), and I choose the non-indent option almost always. > >> For anything handwritten, no matter what style I use, my best bet is > >> to send along a decoder or translation device of some kind. My > >> penmanship is bad (that's "bad" as in "*really* bad"). Indenting or > >> the use of extra space makes absolutely no difference in anything > >> I've written by hand. > > Okay, it seems it's time to once again give an example where > > white space is ambiguous with regard to whether or not a new > > paragraph has started: > > ===== Begin example: ===== > > I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native > > English speaker who made the following statement: > > An octopus has eight testicles. > > Further consideration leads me to realize that that > > statement could conceivably be correct. How many testicles > > *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? > > ===== End example ===== > > How many paragraphs are there in the above example? > What difference does it make? (That's an actual question, not a > smart-alecky remark.) > > Note that when it's rewritten with indentation, there's no > > doubt that there's only one paragraph: > > ===== Begin rewrite: ===== > > I found it highly amusing today to hear of a non-native > > English speaker who made the following statement: > > An octopus has eight testicles. > > Further consideration leads me to realize that that > > statement could conceivably be correct: How many testicles > > *does* an octopus have? One for each tentacle maybe? > > ===== End rewrite ===== > Whether the sample is one paragraph or two or three does not matter as > far as readability goes. There is enough white space to eliminate the > "crowded" look and make the text easy to read. > With readability being the important point (for me, at least), I don't > see how the number of paragraphs matters. Unless... well, unless the [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > within a paragraph (such as above) needn't all be the same height as the > empty lines between paragraphs. > Of course, if the teacher/instructor said "write three paragraphs about > an octopus," I suppose it would behoove one to make it clear that there > are three of them. I hope you read my response to Skitt in this thread, and I would be interested in hearing any comments you may have about it. I should add that I'm sure examples could be devised where the need to make clear that a new paragraph is intended is more important than it is in my discussion of an octopus's testicles. Somewhere and sometime in past decades I've read that you should be able to do a fair job of understanding the gist of a text by reading only the first sentence in each paragraph. If paragraphing has been done properly, and if the introductory sentence is properly chosen, the essential content of each paragraph should be implied by that first sentence. >>>>Matti Lamprhey posted thus: > [quoted text clipped - 51 lines] > > How many paragraphs are there in the above example? I can't see how the number of paragraphs has any importance. It might have been more confusing had the quotation not been indented. SignatureRob Bannister >>> Matti Lamprhey posted thus: >>> [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >>> And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a >>> nonjustified one. This is not true. A line in a justified document starts life as an unjustified line and is justified by adding space within the line or perhaps by crowding a little more text into the line -- it rarely winds up containing less text than the unjustified line. I say "rarely" because in hand composition it is of course possible that the compositor would remove some text from the line to solve an aesthetic problem in the following line. >>> Besides, even without skipping a line in between paragraphs, if one >>> indents the first line of the paragraph, the reader has all the >>> visual clues he needs. >> >> I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I like the blank line between >> paragraphs. I couldn't care less about indentations. If you were a publisher, you'd care a lot about putting blank lines between paragraphs. Basically, they cost money. The more you publish, the more they cost. >I think it's a "rule" to have a blank line between typewritten or >printed paragraphs -- or was when I was learning to type. Without that >blank line, the text portion of a document looks very crowded. There is no such rule; there is only the house style. If the text looks crowded, it is generally the fault of the line spacing used, not the paragraph style. >By the way, studies have shown -- and I believe -- that "full >justification" (FJ) is harder to read than flush left/ragged right. The studies that I've read about indicated that full justification made no difference for a proficient reader, but that ragged right was easier for poor readers. >For >(vertically) long paragraphs and/or wide columns, FJ is especially poor. >You almost need to use a straightedge of some kind to keep your place. This is more likely to be a fault of the document designer than of full justification. If the column is so wide that it is difficult to track from one line to another, then the column is simply too damn wide. Two and a half alphabets is considered a workable line length. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklm Looks about right to me. > If you were a publisher, you'd care a lot about putting blank lines > between paragraphs. Basically, they cost money. The more you publish, > the more they cost. Clearly, this is true, and yet I see so many books that contain a number of apparently pointless blank pages, eg before a new chapter. Sometimes, I suspect it's because it is really a rather short, perhaps light-weight book that they are trying to make look more impressive. > This is more likely to be a fault of the document designer than of > full justification. If the column is so wide that it is difficult to > track from one line to another, then the column is simply too damn > wide. Two and a half alphabets is considered a workable line length. > > abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklm I thought I read somewhere that newspapers had researched this and come to the conclusion that the ideal was about 8 words to a line. SignatureRob Bannister > I see so many books that contain a > number of apparently pointless blank pages, eg before a new > chapter. Sometimes, I suspect it's because it is really a rather > short, perhaps light-weight book that they are trying to make look > more impressive. There will be a blank verso page between chapters if the preceding chapter ends on a recto page. This is because it is conventional to begin a chapter on a recto page. The blank pages you sometimes find at the end of a signature-bound book are there because the number of pages in the book is not an even multiple of the number of pages per signature. -- Mike Nitabach >>I see so many books that contain a >>number of apparently pointless blank pages, eg before a new [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > book are there because the number of pages in the book is not an even > multiple of the number of pages per signature. I understand the second point, but Truly was saying publishers want to save money and yet they often waste space spectacularly. SignatureRob Bannister >>>I see so many books that contain a >>>number of apparently pointless blank pages, eg before a new [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > I understand the second point, but Truly was saying publishers want to > save money and yet they often waste space spectacularly. For an extreme example, read: <http://shughes.home.online.no/a57998/faen.html> SignatureSimon R. Hughes >>I understand the second point, but Truly was saying publishers want to >>save money and yet they often waste space spectacularly. > > For an extreme example, read: > > <http://shughes.home.online.no/a57998/faen.html> They certainly deserved your letter. SignatureRob Bannister >>>I understand the second point, but Truly was saying publishers want to >>>save money and yet they often waste space spectacularly. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > They certainly deserved your letter. That was written in the days before I actually sent the things off. Also, I wrote it in the wrong language to send it and be taken seriously. SignatureSimon R. Hughes >>>>I understand the second point, but Truly was saying publishers >>>>want to save money and yet they often waste space spectacularly. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > off. Also, I wrote it in the wrong language to send it and be > taken seriously. You were seriously pissed off. -- Mike Nitabach >>They certainly deserved your letter. > > That was written in the days before I actually sent the things > off. Also, I wrote it in the wrong language to send it and be > taken seriously. I do find it immensely cathartic to write letters to the editor of say the newspaper without sending them. If I still feel that strongly several days later, I might even post it, but usually by that time, I've calmed down. SignatureRob Bannister >>>They certainly deserved your letter. >> [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > strongly several days later, I might even post it, but usually by > that time, I've calmed down. This reminds me of the literary device wherein the cathartic never- to-be-sent letter is accidentally deposited in the mailbox, either by the author, a family member, or coworker. Ensuing hijinks include attempts to gain access to the mailbox, entreaties to the mailman, and attempts to retrieve the letter after it has been delivered to the recipient. -- Mike Nitabach >> The blank pages you sometimes find at the end of a signature-bound >> book are there because the number of pages in the book is not an even >> multiple of the number of pages per signature. > >I understand the second point, but Truly was saying publishers want to >save money and yet they often waste space spectacularly. But that particular wasted space saves money because it is cheaper to leave the blank pages in than to remove them. Since the size of the signature to be used is sometimes not determined until the print shop schedules a book on a press, it is not always possible for the publisher to anticipate how many blank pages might wind up at the end of the book. Some mass market paperback publishers fill out the blanks with advertising; at IBM, we instructed the printer to replicate the reader's comment form to fill the signature. Our customers could never figure out why some books had one and others had six or seven. SignatureTruly Donovan Lexy Connor mysteries: Chandler's Daughter, Winslow's Wife http://www.trulydonovan.com truly@trulydonovan.com << [Mike Nitabach] The blank pages you sometimes find at the end of a signature-bound book are there because the number of pages in the book is not an even multiple of the number of pages per signature. [end quote] >> Yet if pages are expensive, why not have one or two smaller signatures at the end or somewhere in the book? Also, in an only in a.u.e. tone of voice, I am wondering about that "even multiple". I am sure it looks strange to all the mathematicians and scientists, but I am wondering what it means in general English. We have the options "is not a multiple of the number of pages" "is not an even multiple of the number of pages" "is not an exact multiple of the number of pages" I prefer the "exact multiple" option. -- --------------------------------------------- Richard Maurer To reply, remove half Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > << [Mike Nitabach] > The blank pages you sometimes find at the end of a signature-bound [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > "is not an exact multiple of the number of pages" > I prefer the "exact multiple" option. "Exact multiple" would have been better. Or I could have written, "is not evenly divisible by the number of pages". Perhaps I was conflating the two when I wrote the sentence. -- Mike Nitabach > << [Mike Nitabach] > The blank pages you sometimes find at the end of a signature-bound [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Yet if pages are expensive, why not have one or two smaller > signatures at the end or somewhere in the book? [...] I don't know how it's done these days, but the number of pages per signature is traditionally limited to the number you can get by folding a sheet of paper; you printed a number of pages on each side of the sheet, and then folded, stitched, and cut accordingly. Numbers such as 6 and 10 were impossible. Hence, to some extent, the old size-names such as "folio", "quarto", "octavo" "sixty-fourmo" etc. I say "to some extent" because, of course, these numbers didn't necessarily apply to paper which was cut before being used. Mike. >Yet if pages are expensive, why not have one or two smaller >signatures at the end or somewhere in the book? I happened to observe recently that World Wide Mystery -- an imprint of Harlequin (the bodice-ripper people) -- has the same page count in all of their books, regardless of the number of words in the book (although I'm sure there's a maximum and a minimum involved). They adjust for the actual length of the text by tweaking the type size and line spacing and ultimately filling out the last signature with advertising for their other titles. The page count, including front and back matter, was a nice, neat 256 pages. I'm sure there are terrific economies of scale and standardization in that operation. Another hardcover publisher that I know of insisted that the word count in their mysteries must be 70,000. Not more, not less -- 70,000. I think that had also to do with standardization of press operations. It is possible for publishers to get very good deals from printers when they minimize the fuss that the printers have to go through to handle their book. SignatureTruly Donovan Lexy Connor mysteries: Chandler's Daughter, Winslow's Wife http://www.trulydonovan.com truly@trulydonovan.com >> I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. >> Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a > nonjustified one. How do you reach this conclusion? -- Mike Nitabach >> And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a >> nonjustified one. > > How do you reach this conclusion? From having played with the justification setting on documents I've had on my computer. SignatureDena Jo Delete "delete.this.for.email" for email. >>>And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a >>>nonjustified one. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > From having played with the justification setting on documents I've had > on my computer. If you use full justification, you have to use hyphenation too or else it will look very odd. Justified, hyphenated text is shorter than left justified, unhyphenated. I must admit I've given justification away. I used to like it when I first got hold of a word processor because it made it look more like a book, but there are too many other drawbacks. SignatureRob Bannister > I must admit I've given justification away. I used to like it when > I first got hold of a word processor because it made it look more > like a book, but there are too many other drawbacks. Same here. I was talked out of using full justification by some expert typographers who helped me design a research plan to be used as part of a job application. For those that are interested in typesetting, typography, and page design, I recommed the adobe.typography newsgroup on the adobeforums.com news server. -- Mike Nitabach >>> And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a >>> nonjustified one. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >From having played with the justification setting on documents I've had >on my computer. You must be playing with some other variable -- probably having to do with hyphenation, which can affect the length of the document significantly. Justification is neutral with respect to document length. "Truly Donovan" <truly@lunemere.com> wrote... > >>> And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a > >>> nonjustified one. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > significantly. Justification is neutral with respect to document > length. My experience with WordPerfect 5.1 some years back convinced me that its full-justification algorithm tended to SHORTEN document length, in fact. I believe that the use of FJ caused it to decrease the intercharacter spacing when it was laying down each line, so that the linebreak occurred a little later in the text than it would have done otherwise; then it padded the line to the full width using a combination of intercharacter and interword spacing. -- And I see _postscriptum_ that DJ cited WP5.1 (the DOS version, like mine) as a wordprocessor which did just the opposite! It certainly permitted a wide range of spacing, hyphenation and kerning settings in its printer driver configuration, so perhaps the difference between our experiences can be explained by that. Matti Matti wrote: >My experience with WordPerfect 5.1 some years back >convinced me that its full-justification algorithm tended >to SHORTEN document length, in fact. That was my experience too, and later versions of WordPerfect seem to do the same thing. On 27 Dec 2003, J. W. Love wrote > Matti wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > That was my experience too, and later versions of WordPerfect seem > to do the same thing. There's a *massive* difference between the way WordPefect and MS Word fully justify text: WP keeps adding to the line until it hits the length, then goes back to the last word and adjusts what's there, whilst Word chops at the last word which can be accommodated on the line without compressing, and then spreads the text out to fill that line. You can see the difference by changing the options on MS Word so that it adopts the WP approach: in Word, go to Tools>Options>Compatability, and tick "Do full justification like WordPefect 6.x for Windows". It makes a seriously huge difference to the appearance of fully- justified text in Word. SignatureCheers, Harvey Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years; Southern England for the past 21 years. (for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs) Harvey wrote: >There's a *massive* difference between the way >WordPefect and MS Word fully justify text: WP keeps [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >It makes a seriously huge difference to the appearance >of fully-justified text in Word. Thanks, Harvey: that's useful to know. (A friend of mine likes to ask why Word's defaults are so often the opposite of what users want.) On 27 Dec 2003, J. W. Love wrote > Harvey wrote: re: WP vs Word justification >> You can see the difference by changing the options on >> MS Word so that it adopts the WP approach: in Word, >> go to Tools>Options>Compatability, and tick "Do full >> justification like WordPefect 6.x for Windows". >> It makes a seriously huge difference to the appearance >> of fully-justified text in Word. > Thanks, Harvey: that's useful to know. (A friend of mine likes to > ask why Word's defaults are so often the opposite of what users > want.) I found out about the Word compatability option some few years ago from a tip in a magazine, after I'd switched from WP to Word. (It immediately cleared up why my long-term preference for fully-justified text had suddenly gone sour.) SignatureCheers, Harvey Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years; Southern England for the past 21 years. (for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs) <snip discussion of Word and Wordperfect justification algorithms> Adobe InDesign uses a justification algorithm that considers together all of the lines of each paragraph, rather than only line-by-line, and will move words from one line to another if necessary. This can produce much more even color on the page. The user can specify the percentages within which word spacing, letter spacing, and horizontal glyph scaling are permitted to vary, as well as the extent to which better spacing or fewer hyphens are favored. The default settings take the typographically conservative approach of allowing only word spacing to vary. Although the details of Adobe's algorithm are proprietary, Adobe has credited Knuth's public-domain H&J algorithm from TeX as a starting point. -- Mike Nitabach >On 27 Dec 2003, J. W. Love wrote > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >it adopts the WP approach: in Word, go to Tools>Options>Compatability, >and tick "Do full justification like WordPefect 6.x for Windows". Sorry, I must be missing something here, but I don't understand the difference. I tried it (Word 2002) and I don't see any difference, either in the behaviour while typing or in the result. Signature-ler On 28 Dec 2003, Geoff Butler wrote -snip- >> There's a *massive* difference between the way WordPefect and MS >> Word fully justify text: WP keeps adding to the line until it >> hits the length, then goes back to the last word and adjusts >> what's there, whilst Word chops at the last word which can be >> accommodated on the line without compressing, and then spreads >> the text out to fill that line. -snip- > Sorry, I must be missing something here, but I don't understand > the difference. I tried it (Word 2002) and I don't see any > difference, either in the behaviour while typing or in the result. Perhaps they've changed the defaults since my version of Word (old: 97); but it was very noticeable when I did it. Say you're nearing the end of a line with the words "...uncomfortably long multisyllabic words...". Also say that the theoretical end-of-line is reached after the "n" in "long". Word would cut the line at the end of "uncomfortably" -- since it couldn't fit the whole of "long" on the line -- and would move "long" to the beginning of the next line. It would then stretch the first line out to fill the space, and the line break would read: ...uncomfortably/long multisyllabic. In the same situation, WordPerfect would keep placing letters ont he original line by compressing the text until it hits its maximum line length. Only at that point -- somewhere in "multisyllabic" -- would it go back to the end of the last full word and establish the line break. It would thus place "long" on the first line -- by squeezing the text slightly -- and the line break would read: ...uncomfortably long/multisyllabic. SignatureCheers, Harvey Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years; Southern England for the past 21 years. (for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs) >On 28 Dec 2003, Geoff Butler wrote > [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > > ...uncomfortably long/multisyllabic. Ta. It did the latter of these whichever way the setting was set. They must have learnt something. Signature-ler > -- And I see _postscriptum_ that DJ cited WP5.1 (the DOS version, like > mine) as a wordprocessor which did just the opposite! It certainly > permitted a wide range of spacing, hyphenation and kerning settings in > its printer driver configuration, so perhaps the difference between our > experiences can be explained by that. I still find it surprising. I used Word 5.1, possibly the best version of Word ever produced, for many years. This was still in the days when I was in love with FJ, but my experience was that it either had no effect or the document was slightly shorter. PS Word 5.1 was so good that many later versions gave you options for making them look like it. SignatureRob Bannister >A justified document is always longer than a >nonjustified one. In my experience, that's the opposite of how it turns out. Which wordprocessor are you using?! > In my experience, that's the opposite of how it turns out. Which > wordprocessor are you using?! My word processing days are long since over, but when I was doing it, I was using WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. Now, *that* tells how long it's been. (I loved that program.) SignatureDena Jo Delete "delete.this.for.email" for email. On 25 Dec 2003, Simon R. Hughes wrote > [Emailed to Andrew Franklin of Profile Books, and posted to > alt.usage.english.] > Dear Sir, -snip- > Conclusion: I don't care if there are "issues"; this book does it > for my kinky linguistic gene. I've been enjoying it as well -- is there anyone in this group who *didn't* get at least one copy for Christmas? -- but have spotted a few curious things. One that particularly leapt out at me was her description of a cartoon she liked: it showed a group of people waiting to go into a building, standing by a sign which read _Illiterate's Entrance_. She mentioned that she loved this cartoon, but -- being obsessive -- had Tippexed out the apostrophe and changed it to _Illiterates' Entrance_. Was the Tippex thing supposed to be ironic, or do you think she really did miss the core of the joke? SignatureCheers, Harvey Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years; Southern England for the past 21 years. (for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs) > On 25 Dec 2003, Simon R. Hughes wrote >> [Emailed to Andrew Franklin of Profile Books, and posted to [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > Was the Tippex thing supposed to be ironic, or do you think she really > did miss the core of the joke? I remember her as a TV critic and general columnist in the Times some years ago. She has a *very* sharp wit and sense of humour. I would guess she was conveying that she got the joke, understood that the misplaced apostrophe was an essential part of it but nevertheless couldn't bear to look at it. I didn't get a copy - I had browsed the thing in the shop and concluded that it wasn't really that funny and certainly wasn't original so I warned the family off. -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply >> I've been enjoying it as well -- is there anyone in this group who >> *didn't* get at least one copy for Christmas? -- but have spotted a [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >conveying that she got the joke, understood that the misplaced apostrophe >was an essential part of it but nevertheless couldn't bear to look at it. I puzzled over this for a bit and came to the same conclusion as John. If I hadn't known anything about the writer I would have supposed that she had missed the point; but this one doesn't often miss points. I wonder if anyone's told her about this newsgroup? Katy >On 25 Dec 2003, Simon R. Hughes wrote >> [Emailed to Andrew Franklin of Profile Books, and posted to [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] >Was the Tippex thing supposed to be ironic, or do you think she really >did miss the core of the joke? She may have. An article in today's Times by one of her colleagues, Simon Jenkins, has the title "I have been Trussed up by a stylistic punk". http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-943425,00.html I read it this morning, and it seemed to suggest that he was more prescriptive (or maybe just older) but liked her bubbly style. Signaturewrmst rgrds Robin Bignall Quiet part of Hertfordshire England [...] > 6. "A degree in English language is not a prerequisite for caring > about where a bracket is preferred to a dash" (p. 32). I have > tried to think of such a case, and failed. I think she meant > "parenthesis". [...] I'd defend her usage here. Is a *parenthesis* not, strictly, the punctuation mark but the words separated from the main body of the sentence by the dashes, brackets, even commas? Mike. [ . . . ] > Is a *parenthesis* not, strictly, the > punctuation mark but the words separated from the main body of the > sentence by the dashes, brackets, even commas? Depends on what you mean by "strictly". Dictionaries say a parenthesis can be either one. In Merriam-Webster's dictionaries the punctuation-mark definition comes last, meaning it's the most recent usage. If by "strictly" you mean etymologically speaking or traditionally, or something like that, then I suppose the answer to your question could be yes. I wouldn't expect many ordinary American people these days to know the older meaning of "parenthesis". The _New Shorter Oxford_ gives the punctuation-mark definition without tagging it "US". It dates it early 18th century. Don't most UK people know that it's another name for a round bracket? > [ . . . ] > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > century. Don't most UK people know that it's another name > for a round bracket? UK people corresponding in this group may know that, but the _general_ UK reader means by "brackets" ( ). [ ] are "square brackets", {} are "curly brackets". There is no BrE mark of punctuation generally known as a "parenthesis", which means solely an element of a sentence set apart as an aside by brackets, dashes, or paired commas. (Mathematicians may have their own usage, which I don't know about.) Alan Jones > The _New Shorter Oxford_ gives the punctuation-mark > definition without tagging it "US". It dates it early 18th > century. Don't most UK people know that it's another name > for a round bracket? I certainly wouldn't have done if I hadn't read it here a year or so ago. I still use 'parenthesis' to mean the body of text inserted as a kind of aside. SignatureRob Bannister > > The _New Shorter Oxford_ gives the punctuation-mark > > definition without tagging it "US". It dates it early 18th > > century. Don't most UK people know that it's another name > > for a round bracket? > I certainly wouldn't have done if I hadn't read it here a year or so > ago. I still use 'parenthesis' to mean the body of text inserted as a > kind of aside. I wish that were true in the US. It's always nice to have words mean as few things as possible. It would be hard to introduce "bracket" to mean what we call a parenthesis, because many of us would take "bracket" to mean "square bracket". This seems to be another case where it might be good to agree upon a compromise term. Just as I suggested a few years ago that we adopt a common "go juice" for British petrol and US gasoline, I now suggest that we adopt the common term "bowlegs" for UK "brackets" and US "parentheses". I see in an American dictionary that there is a precedent for calling one leg of a bowlegged person a bowleg. However, I don't find "bowleg" or "bowlegged" at all in _The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_. Is that term known only in the US? I do find "bow-legged" in the online _Oxford English Dictionary_, with the earliest attestation dated 1552 and the latest 1863. Has it fallen out of use in the Uk since then? Or did the _NSOED_ people nod? On 26 Dec 2003, Bob Cunningham wrote -snip- > However, I don't find "bowleg" or "bowlegged" at all in _The > New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_. Is that term known [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > the latest 1863. Has it fallen out of use in the Uk since > then? Or did the _NSOED_ people nod? I think the usual term in the UK is "bandy-legged". SignatureCheers, Harvey Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years; Southern England for the past 21 years. (for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs) > On 26 Dec 2003, Bob Cunningham wrote > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_. Is that term known > > only in the US? > > I do find "bow-legged" in the online _Oxford English > > Dictionary_, with the earliest attestation dated 1552 and > > the latest 1863. Has it fallen out of use in the Uk since > > then? Or did the _NSOED_ people nod? > I think the usual term in the UK is "bandy-legged". Hmmm ... I don't find that in the _NSOED_, either, but it is in Merriam-Webster dictionaries with no national tag. The online _Oxford English Dictionary_ has it under "bandy". By the way, the following statement under that entry seems strange to me: 1. Of legs: Curved laterally with the [*]concavity inward[*]. [perh. attrib. use of BANDY n.1 hockey-stick.'] Also used briefly for bandy-legged. I think "concavity inward" is at best thoroughly ambiguous. From between bowlegs I would imagine a concave surface pointed outward, so I would say there were concavities outward. But from outside the legs I might think of two concavities that could be called inward because they are between the legs. Bottom line, though, I first took "concavity inward" to be simply a mistake. >[ . . . ] > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] >century. Don't most UK people know that it's another name >for a round bracket? As long as one doesn't forget that parentheses van also be marked by other punctuation marks, such as dashes. Steve Hayes hayesmstw@hotmail.com http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm > >[ . . . ] > > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > As long as one doesn't forget that parentheses van also be marked by other > punctuation marks, such as dashes. Sorry: I didn't realize Bob had sensibly shifted the topic to its own header. Below is most of a posting I've just made in the original thread. The thrust of my argument is that "parenthesis" is, as far as I remember, the *only* word we have with its primary meaning. '...remind ourselves that "parenthesis" refers primarily to the content rather than the container. I might not bother, except that it's the only word I know with that precise meaning: our author here seems to me to have had no alternative. 'A parenthesis in this primary sense is very often, perhaps, in daily practice most often, as here, marked by commas; and, as also here, I fancy, and I suspect you'll agree, it can be a rather confusing usage if, as it often does, it gets out of control. '[I see, by the way, {if my eyesight serves) from OED1 that "square brackets" -- their inverted commas -- are <or were> properly called "crotchets".]' Mike. On 26 Dec 2003, Mike Lyle wrote >> 6. "A degree in English language is not a prerequisite for caring >> about where a bracket is preferred to a dash" (p. 32). I have [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > punctuation mark but the words separated from the main body of the > sentence by the dashes, brackets, even commas? Hmmm. I'm not sure about dashes or brackets, but this surely isn't the case for a comma-separated comment. According to the same author, the "comma" was originally the words set off by the marks we now call "commas"; calling that sense of "comma" a "parenthesis" seems a tad perverse. SignatureCheers, Harvey Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years; Southern England for the past 21 years. (for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs) > On 26 Dec 2003, Mike Lyle wrote > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > off by the marks we now call "commas"; calling that sense of "comma" a > "parenthesis" seems a tad perverse. More than that, on page 90, she calls syntactic parentheses "bracketing"; on page 91, she calls the parenthesis -- I'm assuming the () symbols -- a "bracketing device". She includes relative clauses in her "bracketing", but excludes resrictive relatives, which she describes as "defining" (p. 90-93). Perhaps this is simplification, but only to the completely uninitiated; to the rest of us it is confusing. SignatureSimon R. Hughes > on page 91, she calls the parenthesis -- I'm > assuming the () symbols -- a "bracketing device". Add to that that she actually refers to these symbols as "parentheses" -- not "brackets", as she apparently did in her earlier chapter. SignatureSimon R. Hughes > On 26 Dec 2003, Mike Lyle wrote > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > off by the marks we now call "commas"; calling that sense of "comma" a > "parenthesis" seems a tad perverse. I understand you, particularly given that context; but it's hardly perverse to remind ourselves that "parenthesis" refers primarily to the content rather than the container. I might not bother, except that it's the only word I know with that precise meaning: our author here seems to me to have had no alternative. A parenthesis in this primary sense is very often, perhaps, in daily practice most often, as here, marked by commas; and, as also here, I fancy, and I suspect you'll agree, it can be a rather confusing usage if, as it often does, it gets out of control. [I see, by the way, {if my eyesight serves) from OED1 that "square brackets" -- their inverted commas -- are <or were> properly called "crotchets".] Mike. On 27 Dec 2003, Mike Lyle wrote -snip- > [I see, by the way, {if my eyesight serves) from OED1 that "square > brackets" -- their inverted commas -- are <or were> properly > called "crotchets".] Now, *there's* a usage that I'd find quite disorienting: I'd immediately wonder why the author had suddenly switched from language terms to musical ones... SignatureCheers, Harvey Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years; Southern England for the past 21 years. (for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs) > On 27 Dec 2003, Mike Lyle wrote > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > immediately wonder why the author had suddenly switched from language > terms to musical ones... I considered making a similar point, but quavered at the thought. It might have been appropriate in a roman à clef, of course... Mike. |
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