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Re: Use of MS Manual of Style + Use of commas in lists
Subject:Re: Use of MS Manual of Style + Use of commas in lists From:Madelaine Davidson <mdavidson -at- EUR -dot- KO -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 7 Jan 1998 11:32:45 +0100
> On: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 15:49:55 -0500
> Katherin King <kking -at- BROOKTROUT -dot- COM> wrote:
> Is it [computer] industry standard to use the document conventions, menu
> terminology and style, etc., as described in the MS Manual of Style?
> Most of my work is software documentation and I've only recently picked
> up the MS Manual. As I read it, all I could think of was, "We don't do
> it that way." Do most TW's follow Microsoft's conventions?
I'm a contractor in Europe, and so far NONE of the companies I have worked
with (at least 10, mostly blue-chip, in the past 3 years) has adopted the
MS manual, although some of the icons are catching on.
I hope they DON'T adopt it exactly as it is, as it is so badly designed it
makes me cringe. (It breaks many of the physical readability rules for
texts, AND is quite ugly. Admittedly "ugly" is in the eye of the beholder,
but readability rules are not.)
And -- all those "DO NOT USE" entries!! Why not recommend good practice,
which is generalized and therefore can be extended to new situations,
rather than cite specific (and therefore non-generalizable) bad practices
which can not be extended?
Use of commas in lists (British versus USA styles)
I think I noticed a posting over the vacation period about the use of
commas in lists, including the statement that in British English one never
uses a comma in a list before an AND. I have met this statement in several
places I have worked. It is incorrect.
In British English, a list including a comma before an AND is called an
'Oxford list', and has existed for many, many years. It is used to
distinguish between inclusive and exclusive ANDs, just as it would be used
in logic and mathematics. Thus, if you are writing a drinks order, the list
phrase "beer, rum and coke" will get you two drinks, one a mixture of rum
and coke, while the list phrase "beer, rum,and coke" would get you three
drinks, unmixed. (Of course, you may need to clarify the order if the
person reading the order has been taught at a normal English secondary
school, as Oxford lists are rigourously excluded from the standard teaching
syllabus as being 'bad style'.)
