I used to have a copy of "the little book." Seems to me it was required
for Freshman English.
On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Lawrence Walker wrote:
> I would doubt, altho I've been pleasantly surprised at the depth of knowledge
> of the participants on this list, if many are acquainted to the "writers bible",
> "The Elements of Style" by Stronk and White. The title gives the clue. These
> are sugestions not rules. Fred is saying that typography did lay down a set
> of rules to be followed if you were going to print and that this had little to do
> with grammar. eg: 2 spaces after an end of sentence.
>
> Lawrence
>
> Damn !! I can't believe I'm a willing contributor to this OT dribble. Possibly
> because it's as comfortable as a favorite BBS. Maybe we should set up
> another mail-list "classiccomp.dribble" and hope it doesn't suffer the fate of
> the short-lived "discoveries on E-bay" one which rose out of a flame-war. At
> least it would cut down the list msgs. to reasonable proportions. From my
> point of view I could live with a split between micro and mini as I tend to
> automatically delete anything with DEC (and not appended with Rainbow),
> VAX, or VMS. Tho at times I'm able to actually able to understand what is
> being talked about. I know !!! You'se guys are just setting me up to be a mini
> collector. You have no more room for your own passion and you just want to
> spread the disease. LOL.
>
> Lawrence
>
> >
> > --- "r. 'bear' stricklin" <red_at_bears.org> wrote:
> > > On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Stan Barr wrote:
> > >
> > > > It's one of the syntax elements of standard written English...
> > >
> > > These are all _typesetting_ rules, and not so much grammar rules.
> >
> > It's all part of syntax and style, not grammar as you say. How many
> > people on this list ever turned in a paper where the teacher/professor
> > insisted on strict adherence to "Strunk and White"?
> >
> > > Many early typewriters, in an attempt to reduce mechanical complexity to
> > > the utmost, even lack differentiated type for the numerals '1' and '0'
> > > as either can be suitably approximated in typewritten documents by the
> > > lowercase letter 'l' and the uppercase letter 'O', respectively.
> >
> > On Topic: my mother's IBM Selectric type balls do not all contain a
> > different facet for "1" (one) and "l" (ell). She had a 2"x4" plastic
> > clip-on key guide for some type balls. ISTR that if you pressed the
> > "1" key, you got some sort of bracket with the Courier ball installed.
> >
> > > Even the American English "rule" of placing all punctuation inside
> > > quotation marks is a _typographical convention_ that stems from the early days
> > > of movable type, when the period and comma were the most fragile pieces of
> > > type and were prone to breaking off in the press.
> >
> > > Example:
> > >
> > > At the SCM prompt, type, "SHOW BOOT."
> > >
> > > At the SCM prompt, type, "SHOW BOOT".
> > >
> > > Which one is correct?
> >
> > This exact convention is discussed in "The New Hacker's Dictionary". It
> > mentions that American English convention is to put punctuation inside
> > the quotation marks (but does not give any explanation), and that
> > Hacker usage prefers things in quotes to be the literal thing you type
> > at the computer. I tend toward the modern usage, but I _do_ know the
> > difference.
> >
> > -ethan
> >
> > P.S. - in answer to an earlier question asked of the group in general, yes, I
> > have taken Latin. It was a required course (as I think it still should be,
> > everywhere, as it once was). I did not attend a public high-school, however.
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
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>
>
>
> Reply to:
> lgwalker_at_mts.net
>
M. K. Peirce
Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
Shady Lea, Rhode Island
"Casta est quam nemo rogavit."
- Ovid
Received on Fri Jan 04 2002 - 20:28:02 GMT