TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Well, -ize/-ise is just a regional spelling thing, right? Really,
there's nout to get worked up about there.
"Thru" is incorrect in U.S. technical documentation. In informal
communiction, it is fine and there's no reason it should bother you.
The nominalization thing is, well, probably incorrect for the U.S. as
well, and I agree it can be as annoying as that extra "tate" on
"orient" <g>.
The date thing is difficult. For cross-cultural docs, I recommend
spelling out the month, though yyyymmdd helps me rank (note, not
prioritize <g>) memos and files on my PC better than putting the year
last.
All of that is not to mention the candy/sweets things, M&Ms =
Smarties, Milky Way = Mars Bar, Twix = uuummmm Twix <g>, LifeSavers =
almost-but-not-quite Polos.
And, has anyone mentioned the ed/t thing (learned/learnt)?
Next ....
On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 22:37:12 -0400 (EDT), diotima <diotima -at- myway -dot- com> wrote:
>
what bugs you about american documentationize is that it's not british
documentationize.
-diotima
>
> thomas wrote:
> >Things that bug me about American documentation are:
> -ize instead of ise.
> thru instead of through, in fact I'd love it if you never use 'thru' when
describing dates such as; "Sept. 1 thru Sept. 15" and would much more
> prefer it if it was stated along the lines of 'From 1st Sept. to 15th
> Sept. inclusive"
> Dates, this is difficult AND is dependant on the audience exposure to
> computers (after all, using MS products for a while the user becomes aware
> of checking the date format) but in general the UK uses DD/MM/YY(YY) or
> DD-Month (short) name-YYYY. There is an ISO standard date format of (I
> think) YYYY-MM-DD.
> And Finally, The tendency to turn ever noun into a verb by adding 'ize' or
> even 'ise'.
> I'll duck from the 'friendly fire' now.
======
T.
Remember, this is online. Take everything with a mine of salt and a grin.
ROBOHELP X5: Featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author
support, PDF and XML support and much more!
TRY IT TODAY at http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrl
WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT: New! Document review system for Word and FrameMaker
authors. Automatic browser-based drafts with unlimited reviewers. Full
online discussions -- no Web server needed! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
