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Subject:Re: online vs. on line vs. on-line From:"Merrick, Tim" <tim -dot- merrick -at- LSIL -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 1 Jul 1999 09:50:17 -0500
Ellen Lidington asked about a standard for the use of the word "online."
Take your pick. Common usage is "online." The Microsoft Manual of Style
supports this usage, but suggests that writers avoid the term as much as
possible. For example, just say Help rather than online Help.
In our shop, we've chosen Read Me First! as our primary style guide.
However, the authors of that book use "on-line," which makes most of us
cringe. In most situations, no off-the-shelf style manual is going to be a
perfect fit. That's why we've decided to include the MS guide in our
reference set as a secondary source. In our opinion, it's a better tool for
terminology issues.
Tim Merrick
Technical Publications
LSI Logic Storage Systems
