BS: Tech US to UK English advice please

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: ClaireBear
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 01:22 AM

If I remember correctly, the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed., advocated adding 's in all cases except in Greek- and Latin-derived names ending in an unaccented "us" or "es" (short u, short e, or schwa sound). So, that'd be Dickens's, Ramses's (because of the long e), and Demosthenes's -- but Jesus', Cassius', Moses', and so on. That rule was easy to follow and made at least some sense. The 15th ed., again if I recall correctly (it's at work and I'm not), has reduced the exception list so that ONLY Jesus' and Moses' escape the final s. This rule I find less elegant because it's arbitrary and smacks of religious preference. If I had my druthers, I'd go with the 14th ed. dictum or else leave the "s" off in all cases. But they never (well, hardly ever) ask me for my opinion!

Claire

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 07:51 AM

Interesting...I'm sure I posted to this thread yesterday, but it's not here.

Anyway, what I said was that I had (while working for a commercial printer) done the opposite for our client Heinemann Publishing -- Americanized British English in some of their printed material.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: mandotim
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 08:15 AM

Isn't it about time we 'bit the bullet' and started calling the language spoken in the USA 'American'? To my mind the two languages are now different enough to warrant different names. The differences are especially apparent in two fields; slang, and the language of political correctness, with it's incredible contortions to avoid offence. I certainly don't want to have to continually qualify my first language as 'English' English.
Note for the Apostrophe Police; here are a few random ones, for people to use as they see fit.

'''''''''''''
                      ''                ''''

'             '             ''''''''
Tim (with tongue firmly in cheek)

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 08:21 AM

Ah - mandotim - Apostrophes should NEVER be 'random'. you see.... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 09:08 AM

"Spell it the way you pronounce it" seems pretty simple and straightforward, when it come to what Fowler called "possessive puzzles".

Interestingly enough, the form where you leave off the 's when the word ends in s already is apparently the older one. "Formerly customary" is how Fowler put it, going on to point out (back in 1926) that it wasn't customary any more, except in a few special cases.

So, if Americans find themselves impelled to do it that way in writing, even when they wouldn't in speaking, that would be another example of a frequent national tendency to stick with the older way of doing things. (That's not a criticism, just an observation.)

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 09:41 AM

McGrath -

'"Spell it the way you pronounce it" seems pretty simple and straightforward ... '

"Seems", perhaps - the problem I have with it is that in the normal run of my conversation, the possessive forms of Jesus, Mars, Bridges, Demosthenes, Cassius, etc., don't come up often enough for me to have unequivocal pronunciations of them. Whether in speaking or writing, I'm liable to make a quick mental query as to "correctness", and probably will moreso after this discussion; it is in that sense that I find the 1999 Fowler unhelpful.

It is unclear in your post, and I don't have a copy here of the "real" Fowler to check, if Fowler was talking about adding only the apostrophe after s in instances where you actually pronounce what the 1999 Fowler calls an "extra" s, as you imply, or whether he wasn't rather assuming that an extra s is not, in fact, pronounced. I'm not talking about his recommendation, but his description of the "formerly customary" practice. Clarification?

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: Grab
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 12:17 PM

"Noone" *has* to be an error (unless it's Samuel Pepys telling the time, perhaps) because "oo" is not the same as "o o". Thinking about it, maybe "no-one" versus "no one" differentiates a "negative entity" (to coin a phrase) from a count. If you said "no one", it would make more sense in the context of "no one termite destroys a building, but a million of them will".

But given the number of bizarre constructions in English, it ain't necessarily so. :-/ And I agree that "no one" is normally perfectly clear in context - it just happens that I learnt it as "no-one".

Graham.

PS. Rowan, I'd heard the joke as "eats, roots, shoots and leaves" and involving a panda, long before Truss's book (although long after 1952! ;-). I just assumed she'd bowdlerised the joke for publication.

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 01:26 PM

Basically it's a matter of what's easier to say - "Jesus's" is more awkward than "Jesus'" "Truss's" is easier than "Truss'". At least to me it does.

Fowler is clear that when there is an extra s it should be pronounced, and that when it isn't there it is shouldn't be pronounced. The possessive apostrophe would always be there (unless one was following George Bernard Shaw, and leaving out all apostrophes everywhere, as a matter of principle). The puzzle was as to when the apostrophe should be followed be an additional s, and on what occasions it might be correct to dispense with that additional s.

It was formerly customary, when a word ended in -s, to write its possessive with an apostrophe, but no additional s, e.g. Mars' Hill, Venus' Bath, Achilles thews. In verse, & in poetic or reverential contexts, this custom is retained, & the number of syllables is the same as in the subjective case, e.g. Achilles' has three not four; Jesus or of Jesus, not Jesus's But elsewhere we now add the s & the syllable, Charles's Wain, St James's not St James', Jones's children, the Rev Septimus's surplice, Pythagoras's doctrines.(Fowler 1926)

(I see that the spell checker built into Google, though recognising at least some English English spellings, is insistent that Fowler here is wrong and that the "formerly customary" system is still current. Presumably this indicates that in America it is.)

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: ClaireBear
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 02:24 PM

It's no longer "customary" in the U.S. either, at least not universally. As I've already said, Chicago Manual of Style (produced by the University of Chicago Press, which publishes primarily books) suggests 's in all cases except Jesus' and Moses'. Many editors here use that book as their primary style reference.

Many other editors (primarily journalistic ones) follow the Associated Press Stylebook guidelines. I've just checked those and found that the AP Stylebook (primarily intended to be used by the press) advocates the use of the apostrophe without a final s for all proper names. So I'd venture it's more "customary" in journalism than in scholarly English...yet another reason not to believe everything you read in the newspaper!

Claire

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 02:58 PM

But just run that quote of mine from Fowler through the Google toolbar spellchecker that tend to come with Firefox, and you'll see what I mean.

And I think that though Fowler there had "St James's" you won't find that too often when it comes to people singing "St James' infirmary". Not anywhere.

Every rule they come up with, there's going to be an exception turn up. That's what makes it an interesting language. Well, one reason anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 03:11 PM

McGrath - Thanks for the clarification. Now I have another question: did Fowler write "Rev" like that ("the Rev Septimus's surplice"), without a period after the the "v"? As I recall, he was quite clear in his entry on abbreviations that a period is required for an abbreviation that cuts the word short, so to speak, as opposed to an abbreviation that squeezes out some middle letters but retains the final letter (e.g., "St" for "Saint").

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 03:33 PM

No. Well spotted.

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 03:53 PM

I'm tellin' yuh, you gotta get up pretty early in the morning to get one past this pedant!

Really, though, I wasn't trying to get one-up (one up? oneup?) on you - but I was hoping to get one-up on Fowler.

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 04:15 PM

A great man - there aren't that many dictionaries you are scared to pick up when you're in a hurry, because they are liable to suck you in.

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 05:00 PM

I am sure of one thinG, I have been writing to my relatives in the USA for years and they have no bother with my English and neither have I any bother with their "American".

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: ClaireBear
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 05:13 PM

I think with this company it's probably political: a worldwide sales and marketing force does not particularly like having U.S. grammar (and, probably more importantly, the U.S. system of weights and measures; metric system is listed only parenthetically) imposed upon them as standard by the corporate head office. Therefore, they have apparently declared themselves unwilling to use the A4-sized documents prepared for them by the head office until and unless those documents are delivered in UK English.

I can't really say I blame them, and I honestly don't mind doing their conversions for them -- but I do wish they would go the extra mile (kilometre) and supply me with a list of the conversions they would like me to implement. Really, it's awfully hard for me to know exactly what they want. And because, as I've said, I'm preparing a corporate style guide, this would be a very good time to have the conversion process completely documented. Ah, well...

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 05:43 PM

For a language that developed so well without one, English sure has lots of conundrums for the imposers of Latin grammer!

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 06:08 PM

They seem to have stopped doing that these days, in England anyway. They've invented a whole different sort of grammatical framework, and I can't make head nor tail of it. (Nor can a lot of people trying to teach the language, for that matter.)

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 08:00 PM

"English" is a polyglot - it accumulated lots of stuff from many different and conflicting inconsistent sources.

It still does.

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 04:24 AM

ClaireBear,
If they are asking you to produce the style guide, and not specifying what they want, doesn't this give you a wonderful opportunity to impose what YOU want on the firm?

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 07:29 AM

... for as long as you keep the job Napoleonette!

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: ClaireBear
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 11:00 AM

Topsie has a very good point, but what he doesn't know is that I am a quadruple virgo, which means that what I want is to do the best job I possibly can -- which in turn is why I have been asking all of you for input.

I have about ten pages of spelling and vocabulary differences collected, relying largely on this Finnish site, which had higher overall quality than any other online resource I was able to locate. Tomorrow I will dig out my Fowler and add to the sparse grammar and punctuation sections.

I am feeling reasonably good about it; mostly I wanted to be sure that there was not one perfect reference work that I should be using but that I hadn't heard of. After asking all of you as well as querying an expat American friend (who as it happens is a linguist) in New Zealand and not getting any answer other than Fowler, I am fairly confident that I'm not overlooking any obvious research resources.

Thank you all very much for your comments! They have helped me tremendously, and it's been grand to watch the discussion grow. I can't tell you how delightful it is to find that there are people out there who are yet more pedantic than I; I hadn't been entirely sure that was possible.

Cheers,
Claire

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: Rowan
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 04:56 PM

Go Claire!
When I started uni there were still lots of words around with a "oo" in them where the umlaut was routinely printed (as a pronunciation guide, I suppose) but zoology and oocyte were not among them. Neither was "noone", and everybody 'knew' they were pronounced with the separation of the two vowels; nobody pronounced noone as noon. In the last 20 years or soo though, I have come across 'first years' (called 'freshers' in my youth and freshmen in the US, I gather) pronouncing zoology and oocyte as "zoo ology" and "oo cyte", respectively. So I can understand the desire to hyphenate no-one or separate it into two words.

Working in archaeology and palaeoanthropology ("cooee" isn't the only word with four consecutive vowels) I frequently come across the American spelling of these and similar words and find it mildly irritating when the authors are Australians who rely on Micro$oft as an authority. But that's just my provincial loyalties at play. Interestingly, I hear (but haven't yet confirmed) that various American journals are now advising contributors that they require the older spelling(s).

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 05:21 PM

A "flexible" difference that comes to mind is the use of "a" vs "an."

In my past experience, UK usage was according to spelling, and "an" was used strictly preceding any word that began with a vowel or "h."

US usage was by pronunciation, so it was "an hour" but "a horse." (US usage "pronounces" the h in horse distinctly, - - usually.)

I've noted, working with quite a number of green card Brits, that at least they (working in the US) had drifted more to the US usage, both in speech and in writing, but wonder if the usage has changed "over there."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 06:00 PM

The rule in England for a/an and h has for many years been the same as now appears to have been adopted in the USA - that the pronunciation determines whether it is a or an - but of course pronunciation varies.

Fowler (original) yet again: A is used before all consonants except silent h (a history, an hour); an was formerly usual before an unaccented syllable beginning with h (an historical work), but now that the h in such words is pronounced the distinction has become pedantic, & a historical should be said and written.

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 06:35 PM

Yes Claire -

the real pedants remember that English - most 'human' (this excludes 'computer languages')languages too - come in 2 forms - spoken and written.

However, looking at modern culture all around, I'm wondering if that number should be increased - eg 'phonics' & most definitely 'txting' - which funnily enough, a few days ago there was great furore in Australia about. Some school authorities publicly stated that 'txtspell' would be accepted in written answers to tests - 'as long as the MEANING was clear'.... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 07:16 PM

The thing that puzzles me about txtspell is that it's supposed to save time, but with if you use "predicted text" in a mobile phone it's surely liable to be slower if you don't use normal words and spellings.

And since most people read with their eyes rather than their lips it takes longer to interpret as well, especially if any, even slightly unusual, words or expressions are used. (Just turn any extended passage into txtspell and it looks like klingon, something to be decoded, rather than scanned instantly in the way standard spelling normally permits.)

I am sure there will be some txt abbreviations which will become standardised and recognisable, in the same way that "&" is recognised as an alternative to "and", or "etc" for "etcetera", but that's a different matter from having whole passages written in improvised code.

Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please
From: Rowan
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 09:36 PM

Two or three years ago the ABC (Australian) televised a competition between a 12 year old lad who was obviously a bit of a hot shot (never seen it as "an hot shot") at txting with his mobile phone (OK, "sell phone") and a couple of nonagenarians who could send and receive Morse code.

The competition was set up so that both parties had to transmit a reasonably long question from Sydney to Perth, where it was deciphered (by another txter for the phone and one of the nonagenarians for the Morse) and the answer to the question sent back to Sydney by email.

The Morse pair won quite handsomely and the expression on the face of the lad at the news he'd been comprehensively beaten was a sight for sore eyes. I don't think a pub was involved, so I can't decide whether it would have been a hotel or an hotel.

Cheers, Rowan