Skip to main content

Re: Writing Rant

Well as expected my previous writing rant did NOT (sadly) "automagically" fix the world :(

However, I have been able to encourage others to see the light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Copyedit#Copyedit_Tag_needs_copy_editing

Wikipedia's CopyEdit tag used to display this text: "This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling."

So I encouraged them to change it:
" 'and/or' isn't really valid so it's kind of funny to see it in a statement regarding copy editing. Simply using "or" sufficiently indicates that any combination of grammar, style, cohesion, tone, and spelling need to be addressed. Either that or it should be changed to "and/exclusive or" but even that is implied by a simple "or" while avoiding the awkwardness of reading "and/exclusive or".

Wikipedia even has an entry about "and/or" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And/or

This page also provides a quick synopsis regarding why and/or shouldn't be written http://www.geocities.com/thorin.geo/and_or_invalid.html"
(That geocities URL is basically a static recreation of what I had previously blog'd)

Amazingly without further discussion or debate they saw the all was good in the suggestion and agreed to the change:
"Agreed. I've made the change you suggested."

Hurray! for logical minds.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Something that perplexes me....

I just came across this bit about asteroid Apophis and the chances of it impacting earth . "NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid known as Apophis and now say it has only a very slim chance of banging into Earth.. The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields, and updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036 for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million, NASA stated." So here's the bit that rubs me wrong: "four-in-a million". Why not say "one-in-250,000". If the authors are really stuck on the whole "four-in" thing then they should have said four-in-180,000 to start with. I really find inconsistencies like this baffling, I wish I knew the author and could understand what they hoped to gain by reporting the number in this way.

Coming to a flight near you....."What to do when your aircraft is hit by flaming space junk"

And you always thought flying was the most safe form of travel. "'The pilot of a Lan Chile Airbus A340 ... notified air traffic controllers at Auckland Oceanic Centre after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane...'" Space Debris Narrowly Misses Airliner That's just messed up, I mean I knew that space junk posed a threat for our satellites, rockets, the shuttle, ISS, etc but having to worry about it entering the atmosphere just sucks. I mean yay one less thing for our extra-atmospheric endeavors to collide with but still messed up. I wonder if my house insurance covers "impact from flaming space debris". I know I get most bizarre "act of god" type things but that's pushing it.

Keyboard Shortcuts (Part II)

Continuing from my previous post on Keyboard Shortcuts : Windows Desktop/Explorer Window: F1 > Open Windows Help (Or active application help if you aren't on the desktop or in windows explorer) F2 > When you have a file selected F2 will take you into Rename mode F3 or WinKey + F > Open the find file or folder applet F5 > Refresh Window WinKey + M > Minimize All Windows WinKey + shift + M > Restore All Minimized Windows WinKey + D > Show Desktop WinKey + L > Lock Windows (Not available before WinXP) WinKey + E > Launch Windows Explorer WinKey + B > Set Focus to the TaskBar (dunno why you'd want to do this) WinKey + ctrl + F > Open the find computer applet shift + delete > Permanently remove a file (same as delete followed by empty trash) alt + tab > Cycles through your program list alt + shift + tab > Cycles backwards through your program list alt + space > Activate the window control menu (same as right clicking the icon in the top l...