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Author Topic: Dear Expert  (Read 165343 times)

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Offline Annie Subjunctive

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #875 on: December 08, 2014, 11:44:59 AM »
Have you guys ever seen people use technic for technique? I've seen several people do it, and I had a piano textbook once that did. It drives me batty because it's hard to squeeze the same pronunciation out of technic without feeling really weird.
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Offline Tante Shvester

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #876 on: December 08, 2014, 11:51:02 AM »
I haven't seen that one.  I'm wondering if the spellcheckers are driving the change in spelling
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #877 on: December 08, 2014, 11:59:08 AM »
Apparently it's a thing. link

Quote
tech·nic noun \ˈtek-nik, for 1 also tek-ˈnēk\
 
Definition of TECHNIC

1 :  technique 1
2 plural but sing or plural in constr :  technology 1a
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Offline Annie Subjunctive

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #878 on: January 08, 2015, 11:19:53 AM »
Is there any real reason at all to insist on differences among em-dashes, en-dashes and hyphens? Are there any cases of ambiguity? I can't understand why we still care about them, which I realize makes me obnoxious to fellow graphic designers and purists, but seriously. I see no reason we can't just use one size dash for everything.
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #879 on: January 08, 2015, 11:47:09 AM »
I like the en dash, but I'll admit that it doesn't serve a real purpose that couldn't be served by a hyphen. I guess you could argue that there's a difference between a hyphen as a separator (as in a phone number) and an en dash as an indicator of an inclusive range, but there's no real risk of ambiguity.

I still think em dashes and hyphens should be separate, though. Using single hyphens for dashes leads to confusion because you can't tell the difference between a compound word and a break in the sentence, which are very different things.
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Offline rivka

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #880 on: January 08, 2015, 01:12:45 PM »
Unless you put a space on either side of the hyphen-acting-as-emdash.
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #881 on: January 08, 2015, 01:15:32 PM »
Yeah, that could work.
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Offline Keith

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #882 on: January 09, 2015, 10:11:29 PM »
I actually have some trouble parsing Rakeesh's posts on fora because he uses hyphens without spaces instead of emulating emdashes with spaces.
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #883 on: January 10, 2015, 08:32:33 AM »
Yeah, I was thinking of that too.
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Offline rivka

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #884 on: January 11, 2015, 09:55:44 AM »
Me three.
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Offline dkw

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #885 on: January 20, 2015, 06:10:11 AM »
Fourthed.

Offline dkw

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #886 on: January 20, 2015, 06:22:38 AM »
Is there an English word that refers to the word in another language that is translated into the language you are writing in?  The source word? Used in a sentence like "Dikaiosune is the _____ of "justice" in Plato's Republic."  I guess it would be the inverse of the word translation.

Offline Jonathon

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #887 on: January 20, 2015, 07:44:51 AM »
Hmm. I don't think I've ever encountered a word quite like that. Usually I see things phrased like "Dikaiosune is translated as 'justice' in Plato's Republic."
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Offline dkw

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #888 on: January 20, 2015, 09:16:02 AM »
Yeah, me too.  Or "The word "justice" is a translation of the Greek word "dikaiosune," if the starting point is the other side.  It seems like there should be a word for it, though.

Offline rivka

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #889 on: January 20, 2015, 10:12:55 AM »
Original word?
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Offline dkw

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #890 on: March 04, 2015, 12:54:54 PM »
If the title of a book ends with a question mark do you put a comma after the question mark in a situation where you would normally put a comma after a book title?

Offline Jonathon

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #891 on: March 04, 2015, 01:09:40 PM »
It depends on the style guide. The latest edition of Chicago says to do so, but only in source citations. APA says no, and I can't find anything in MLA.
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Offline dkw

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #892 on: March 04, 2015, 01:13:05 PM »
I'm using Chicago.  Thanks. 

But here's a worse one . . . an article title that ends with a question mark.  Comma inside the quotation marks after the question mark?

Offline Jonathon

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #893 on: March 04, 2015, 01:27:12 PM »
Inside. It's a little weird, but they're not budging on the in-or-out question.
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Offline dkw

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #894 on: March 04, 2015, 01:30:59 PM »
Thanks.


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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #895 on: March 04, 2015, 01:31:45 PM »
No problem.
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Offline pooka

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #896 on: March 05, 2015, 04:37:52 AM »
Can you rewrite the sentence to avert this abomination?
Now I'm thinking of a monster slayer hero that seeks out and corrects adjacent punctuation.
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Offline dkw

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #897 on: March 05, 2015, 10:40:27 AM »
I'm thinking of an educational video game for teaching grammar and/or punctuation. When you rewrite the incorrect sentence the monster turns aside and doesn't eat you.

Offline Annie Subjunctive

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #898 on: March 22, 2015, 08:32:49 PM »
That's cool! I have a ton of half-developed educational apps that I just need to find a good enough programmer to help me finish. Do you make any games yourself?
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Offline dkw

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #899 on: March 23, 2015, 05:03:47 AM »
No, that was a stray thought in response to pooka's post.