|
Grex > Cyberpunk > #138: Computer references changing written language? |  |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 151 responses total. |
pfv
|
|
response 5 of 151:
| 
Nov 12 20:58 UTC 2000 |
Try writing thus:
"The following site - http://xxx.com - is a porno site and to be
avoided. However, users hitting http://yyy.com will be pleasantly
suprised by the wonderful Nature-Scenes. Finally, you can always
get a kick outta' (http://zzz.com)."
|
brighn
|
|
response 6 of 151:
|
Nov 12 21:16 UTC 2000 |
yyy.com is a site for chocolate lovers. Which nature scenes were you seeing?
I assumed otter meant something like:
Check out www.xxx.com .
That doesn't strike me as a very good solution at all. Where possible, of
course, one could avoid difficulty by underlining the URL (and not the
period).
Non-standard hyphenation and such will be typical until the MLA and APA and
other such watchdog groups settle on a consensus. Personally, I use e-mail
and the Internet (always capped), as well as my company's intranet (not
capped). I go to the Web (capped), and visit BBSs (no apostrophe) like
(properly punctuated) grex.cyberspace.org. Anyone who uses the Internet should
KNOW that URLs don't end in periods (typically), so it's not really all that
confusing, but then, anyone who really seeks to use proper punctuation should
know plurals don't take apostrophe (the so-called "green grocer's plural"),
but I see apostrophes after acronyms all the time.
|
ashke
|
|
response 7 of 151:
|
Nov 12 21:42 UTC 2000 |
if you want to get really messed up, try writing COBOL programs. I once was
working on a program, or rather series of programs for a class I was taking,
and periods are used in COBOl for breaking up logical functions. It took me
3 days to figure out why the damn thing would work, and it ended up being a
period in the wrong place, and I didn't notice it, because it appeared to be
a logical place when reading english, just not code.
perhaps the a way to stop that would be to type http:/www.xxx.com/. but then
again, same problem...
maybe we should just stop typing in english, type in Wingdings instead!
|
gull
|
|
response 8 of 151:
|
Nov 12 21:44 UTC 2000 |
I'm also often torn about punctuation and quote marks.
This is correct, according to english profs:
To continue, type "c."
But this is less confusing:
To continue, type "c".
|
pfv
|
|
response 9 of 151:
|
Nov 12 21:47 UTC 2000 |
You can't do much about how a browser see's an URL. You CAN affect
HOW folks view yer text.. Which was my point.
I made, prolly bad, an ssumption that PARENS were not part of an
URL.
|
ric
|
|
response 10 of 151:
|
Nov 12 22:04 UTC 2000 |
I never put a period after a URL... commas are okay, periods bad. If I'm
ending a paragraph with a URL, I'll just leave out the period.
|
scott
|
|
response 11 of 151:
|
Nov 12 22:07 UTC 2000 |
Sorry about the xxx.com; perhaps foo.com would have been better (it doesn't
even exist yet, though I thought *somebody* must have taken it by now).
Grex is probably smarter than the average Web conference site as far as URLs
go. I'd guess that Jan or Steve, when writing Backtalk, had given some
thought to this issue. Other websites are probably not so lucky.
|
brighn
|
|
response 12 of 151:
|
Nov 12 22:33 UTC 2000 |
foo.com doesn't exist yet because so many people are fighting about it.
They are, of course, the ... well, you finish it.
#10> Why are periods bad in their appropriate place? Your name is Rick, and
it doesn't end in a period, either. Is "Hi, Rick." bad form? URLs are, in a
sense, just names.
#8> that, I'll admit, is a problem. In my case, I break with traditional
convention and put the period outside the qoute mark.
|
jor
|
|
response 13 of 151:
|
Nov 12 22:33 UTC 2000 |
s/an URL/a URL/duck
|
brighn
|
|
response 14 of 151:
|
Nov 12 22:34 UTC 2000 |
well, now, if you pronounce "URL" as "earl"...
;}
|
jor
|
|
response 15 of 151:
|
Nov 12 22:39 UTC 2000 |
To continue type "c".
I believe the above is not ungrammatical.
|
birdy
|
|
response 16 of 151:
|
Nov 12 23:08 UTC 2000 |
I would agree. "C" is correct in the grammatical sense.
|
polygon
|
|
response 17 of 151:
|
Nov 12 23:27 UTC 2000 |
In general, I highlight URLs between dashes -- http://www.foo.com -- rather
than get them mixed up with punctuation. If the URL must be at the end of
a sentence, I leave out the period.
|
janc
|
|
response 18 of 151:
|
Nov 12 23:47 UTC 2000 |
Steve Weiss wrote the URL parsing for Backtalk. I think it's pretty good,
but not perfect. The URL parsing in Linux xterm seems substantially less
clever. I like punctuation outside of quotes like "http://www.foobar.com".
I don't know if all URL parsers handle that right, but most seem to, since "
is a pretty rare (almost illegal) character in URLs. By the way,
"http://www.foobar.com" does exist and has been doing nothing useful since
1993.
|
brighn
|
|
response 19 of 151:
|
Nov 13 00:19 UTC 2000 |
To continue, type "c".
does not follow traditional prescriptions on punctuation. The period must
ALWAYS be within the quote mark.
|
ric
|
|
response 20 of 151:
|
Nov 13 01:31 UTC 2000 |
Unfortunately, typing "c." won't have the desired effect.
|
keesan
|
|
response 21 of 151:
|
Nov 13 02:02 UTC 2000 |
I think British English puts the period after the quotation mark, but American
English puts it before. Anyone know what Canadians do? Germans?
|
remmers
|
|
response 22 of 151:
|
Nov 13 03:21 UTC 2000 |
The Modern Language Association style guide for citing online
references calls for URL's to be enclosed in angle brackets.
For example:
Mardesich, Jodi. "Online Music Stocks: Expect Plenty of
Static Ahead." Fortune, 25 Oct. 1999: 382. Academic
Search Elite. EBSCO Publishing. (AN:2341736) 13 Apr. 2000
<http://www.epnet.com/ehost/indiana/ehost.html>.
Assuming URL parsers handle such angle brackets okay, there
shouldn't be any problem with a final period if you follow
that convention.
|
birdy
|
|
response 23 of 151:
|
Nov 13 03:50 UTC 2000 |
<raises her hand> The only time periods go within quotation marks is when
they are part of dialogue. For example:
Susie said, "Please feed the dog."
When it is a word that is simply in quotations, then the period follows the
quotation marks since it isn't part of that term. Example:
My friend is a "preppy".
Therefore, I would say:
To continue, press "c". How many times have you seen help files on Grex that
say 'To do such and such, press "ctrl-c".'?
|
gull
|
|
response 24 of 151:
|
Nov 13 04:15 UTC 2000 |
See, I was told they *always* go inside the quote marks. I figured this was
because it makes the typesetting look prettier. I was chewed out by my boss
(mildly) for doing it the other way once. ;>
I've never noticed URL parsing in xterms, though I have noticed it in
gterms. I'm not sure what it's supposed to *do*, though; if you put the
cursor over a URL, the cursor changes to a pointing finger, and the URL is
underlined, but clicking on it doesn't seem to do anything.
|
brighn
|
|
response 25 of 151:
|
Nov 13 04:41 UTC 2000 |
I don't know about England. The American standard is:
Periods and commas ALWAYS go inside the quotation marks.
Semi-colons, colons, question marks, and exclamation points go inside the
quotes if they're relevant to what's in the quotation marks, and outside if
they're not.
The reason is aesthetic. Quotes are high, and periods are low, so periods
outside of the quotes look "lonely."
Of course, many people don't follow the standard, in which case, come up with
your own dang rules. =}
|
janc
|
|
response 26 of 151:
|
Nov 13 05:18 UTC 2000 |
Re #24: Control-clicking opens the URL in Netscape. Yeah, gterm.
Yes, brighn, we know that. The rule was written when punctuation marks were
just punctuation marks and not significant characters. According to the rule:
INCORRECT: To move to the parent directory, type "cd ..".
CORRECT: To move to the parent directory, type "cd ..."
Yeah right. In computer literature, the aesthetic rule is a non-starter.
Prettiness is not as important as clarity. The punctuation-inside-the-quotes
rule is OBSOLETE, at least in documents where punctuation marks often have
non-punctuation uses. I'd say you should pick one rule or the other and use
it consistantly through a document, but you do not need to follow the old rule
when it a hinderance.
And yes, I know that the sentences above can be rewritten to avoid the
problem, but why should I be forced to rewrite me sentences merely to work
around a broken aesthetic rule?
Anyway, no sentence with "cd .." in it is aesthetically salvagable no matter
what you do. Unix commands are unlovely creatures.
|
i
|
|
response 27 of 151:
|
Nov 13 05:20 UTC 2000 |
This reminds me of old conversations about writing that was full of
case-sensitive function names. When printf() is right and Printf()
will result in a non-functional program, you get into the same sorts
of issues. I think one CS (computer science) TA (teaching assistant)
dealt with self-appointed grammer police by saying that their final
grades would be submitted using a program that capitalized thing the
way they wanted...giving them Incompletes on their report cards.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 28 of 151:
|
Nov 13 05:24 UTC 2000 |
Reminds me that US documents written for a South Korean audience could not
capitalise the "n" in "north Korean", even at the beginning of sentences.
|
raven
|
|
response 29 of 151:
|
Nov 13 08:32 UTC 2000 |
Hey thanks for the tip about ccontrol clicking in gterm to open a URL.
Now linkked to cyberpunk your conf of ccyberspace and social issues.
|