tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post2912355592863045914..comments2024-03-28T10:18:05.213+00:00Comments on Inventory Full: You're Italic, I'm In BoldBhagpusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-4848416452225288792020-04-01T08:43:20.434+01:002020-04-01T08:43:20.434+01:00Why, no, thank you! Going to attempt to post every...Why, no, thank you! Going to attempt to post every day for Blapril so I'm sure there will be plenty of filler. Don't get your hopes up!Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-27815754818995042632020-04-01T08:41:51.875+01:002020-04-01T08:41:51.875+01:00It's impossibly hard to keep track, I find. I ...It's impossibly hard to keep track, I find. I just noticed this morning, on what I think is my third post-publication read-through, that I capitalized House Rules but not house style. Why? I have no frickin' clue! I just did and then I didn't even notice I'd done it.<br /><br />There's a temptation to keep going back and editing these things every time I notice but there was a discussion about that during some other year's NBI or Blaugust and I think the consensus was that after a day or two it was probably best to leave things alone. So House Rules and house style it is. Until next time.Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-27569797866582141502020-03-31T23:39:02.582+01:002020-03-31T23:39:02.582+01:00Thank you. Several good chuckles here after a lon...Thank you. Several good chuckles here after a long day of work. I look forward to more tomorrow as always.Linatohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14602337764340176054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-49386703025388080442020-03-31T23:07:21.418+01:002020-03-31T23:07:21.418+01:00Hehe, a thoroughly entertaining read -- although t...Hehe, a thoroughly entertaining read -- although that is probably as much as I'll take from it. Not because of any stubborn intent on my part, but rather... I think I'm fairly set in my ways on much of this stuff now. <br /><br />At least where the basics are concerned. As couldn't help but to have a fair chuckle at your mention of forgetting your own house rules from time to time. Because I've found on numerous occasion a need to go back and actually look what, precisely, I did in a particular context. (Usually around handling of block quotes.)<br /><br />There are other stylistic decisions I've experimented with or just decided to change over time. e.g., I used to have a preference for drop caps at the start of a post. I don't bother any more, for a number of reasons. One being they can cause layout issues, but also because they don't actually add anything to readability.<br /><br />I'm sure one day, beyond the basics, I too will have a set of house rules. Right now they don't exist in anything beyond a nebulous state though. Naithinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02830174305806727004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-90254443547277711262020-03-31T18:37:12.393+01:002020-03-31T18:37:12.393+01:00You are right. I found their style guide:
"...You are right. I found their style guide:<br /><br />"Where you would normally pronounce the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec)."<br /><br />Of course, there is a list of exceptions afterwards, and it still annoys me, but welcome to life. There is also a fun section about American usage that is not allowed right after the section that frowns on using "America" to refer to the United States.Wilhelm Arcturushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07033496821708933394noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-88494161748246832872020-03-31T17:53:52.776+01:002020-03-31T17:53:52.776+01:00We had this at work for many years, where people w...We had this at work for many years, where people would arrive with whatever set of rules for ordering names they'd been taught at school or university and start to re-arrange sections accordingly. Which would be fine if they were the only people that used and maintained them but of course they never were. So some people would put the Mcs with the Macs and others would put them in strict alphabetical order and some would put de Waal under D and others would put it under W and so on.<br /><br />Then we got a change of ownership and after a while someone on high was authorized to start issuing orders on how it should be done so now we all do it the same way (at least in theory). And in the end 8it doesn't matter which way is "right" because none of them are. It just matters that everyone knows the same set of rules and follows them.<br /><br />Now if only I could persuade myself to do the same here...<br /><br />Also, the BBC never refers to itself as the Bbc, does it? I hadn't noticed that quirk. I bet there's some internal logic to it, quite possibly along the lines that acronyms which can be articulated as words get the Nasa treatment while those that can't stay in all caps.Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-86966697765197328112020-03-31T17:04:33.913+01:002020-03-31T17:04:33.913+01:00House rules. At some point in the past I decided ...House rules. At some point in the past I decided to italicize game/expansion names, though I was taught way back in school that I should put them in quotes. But at the time computer text was as static as that from a typewriter. But that was maybe at the half way point of the blog so far, so I do find lots of old posts where I do not do that.<br /><br />Also, out of long habit, I put two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence. There is/was a holy war going on about this, filled with spurious reasoning and preference cast as rules, but I just do it because that was the way I learned to type and I might as easily change how I breath as stop.<br /><br />I do find some house rules odd. I knew somebody who worked for Wired and asked why they always write Lego when the LEGO company style guide says it should be written LEGO. His answer was mostly "because" with some "we don't let companies tell us what to do" injected in it.<br /><br />One house rule I find irksome is the BBC and how they have decided that acronyms are just words and only the first letter gets capitalized. So NASA is always Nasa over there, though they tend to break that rule at times for British institutions. It is the NIH and not the Nih, so I am not sure what they are trying to accomplish. But no doubt some senior editor feels very passionately about topic and so it is what it is with no more justification than that. Wilhelm Arcturushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07033496821708933394noreply@blogger.com