Re: "i18n"; abbreviating

On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 21:43:59 -0500, Peter T. Daniels
<grammatim@...> wrote:

> Whyever would I go to such websites?

Because they are concerned, in some degree, with different writing
systems, and practical consequences of their use. General awareness might
also apply.


[nb]

>> Linguistic note:
>>
>> The art of abbreviating seems to be declining. I have some doubts that
>> it's taught properly, if at all, to many, these days and in the recent
>> past.
>> There's something I call "literary sense", a kind of awareness, that
>> revolts against considering the two-letter state, province, and
>> territory
>> postal codes to be abbreviations. Many are not literary; their
>> two-consecutive-caps. format is not literary. It seems that only a
>> minority of copy editors at periodicals still use true state
>> abbreviations.
>
> Chicago 15 has succumbed and recommends the two-letter abbreviations.
> That's a change from 14. I don't agree.

Little doubt, all caps, as well.

One flagrant example of contemporary sub-literacy is making a word
(usually a noun, if not always) all caps if it is unknown to the writer.
This reminds me that I recently came across a curious Web site in which
"radar" (Acronym; "RAdio Detection And Ranging") was consistently rendered
as all caps. Text was written recently, not an historic source. (Ranging:
Finding out how far away something is. From gunnery (and golf rangefinders
:) ))

--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath