| Author |
Message |
R H Draney
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:04 am
Post subject: Re: The emoticon "g" [was: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web |
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Bob Cunningham filted:
| Quote: |
On 10 Oct 2005 16:40:10 -0700, "Gerald Smyth"
geraldsmyth1@yahoo.com> said:
That last comma there is positively alien to me....g
Why does Gerald Smyth always end his postings with an
emoticon ("g") especially when nothing funny seems to have
been said?
Yeah, I know, it's not an emoticon, but it frequently
strikes me that way.
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Apparently I'm a role model....r |
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Bob Cunningham
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:06 am
Post subject: Re: Clickable links [was: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web |
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On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 18:11:14 -0700, "Skitt"
<skitt99@comcast.net> said:
| Quote: | Bob Cunningham wrote:
"Skitt" said:
|
[...]
| Quote: | Why make that user copy and paste
in order to spare yourself the inconvenience of typing a
couple of spaces?
Well, when I posted that URL I didn't know that Agent still had that
problem.
|
It's not a question of whether or not Agent has the problem.
There are many other newsreaders in use. (See
http://www.exw6sxq.com/sparky/aue_related/newsreaders_xxxx.html
, where "xxxx" stands for any year 1996 through 2004.) It's
a matter of not being able to depend upon any one of the
many newsreaders providing the capability to click on a link
that isn't suitably delimited.
| Quote: | Honest Injun! I might try to make allowances for it, but that
screws up English language writing conventions. I'll try to decide what
sort of presentation is best in this group. There might be other ways to
skin this cat.
|
There have been extensive threads on this subject in
alt.usage.english over the years. They're probably
available at Google Groups if you can think of a suitable
search string.
I advocated enclosing URLs in angle brackets, and I thought
that was a tidy, foolproof approach, but there was at least
one poster who didn't like it. He asked that URLs always be
on a line by themselves, and I abided by that request for a
long time, drifting away from it only when that poster had
been gone from the newsgroup for a long time.
Donna participated in the discussions, and you can see by
looking at her postings what her conclusion seems to have
been. It evidently was to always put a URL on a line by
itself. She nearly always does that.
There's a trap there, though, that she may not have thought
of: When a posting is quoted, all of its lines get an
attribution tag in column one, including lines that may have
had URLs by themselves. This results in a URL that has ">"
precatenated to it. If the URL that was on a line by itself
wasn't preceded by a space, this means that the URL has the
">" directly precatenated. I tried that with Agent, and
Agent didn't object, but other newsreaders might.
I will continue to precede and follow all URLs with a space,
not bothering to put URLs on separate lines, waiting for
anyone to tell me that it causes a problem with clickability
in their newsreader.
I doubt that any other approach will be found necessary to
"skin this cat". If you're worried about the esthetics of
that approach, maybe bracketing URLs with "<>" is the best
way to skin it. We could experiment again to see if anyone
has a clickability problem with those delimiters. |
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Michael Hamm
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:06 am
Post subject: Re: Clickable links [was: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web |
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On Tue, 11 Oct 2005, Bob Cunningham wrote, in part:
| Quote: | If anyone has a newsreader that won't let you click on a URL
that's preceded and followed by spaces, I would appreciate
hearing about it.
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I use PINE. It allows me to click on anything I like, but doing so
doesn't accomplish anything.
Michael Hamm It's not who you know, it's whom.
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis Joan Rivers
msh210@math.wustl.edu Fine print:
http://www.math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ ... legal.html |
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Ted Schuerzinger
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:06 am
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site [was: Re: About that |
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Somebody claiming to be Joe Fineman <joe_f@verizon.net> wrote in
news:uu0fog91n.fsf@verizon.net:
| Quote: | I imagine "I want to thank" as a colloquial & not very sensible
shortening of "I would like to thank",
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And "I would like to thank" *is* sensible? I can't imagine a speaker
saying, "I really wouldn't like to thank you, but that would be
impolite...."
--
Ted <fedya at bestweb dot net>
Oh Marge, anyone can miss Canada, all tucked away down there....
--Homer Simpson |
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Don Aitken
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:06 am
Post subject: Re: Clickable links [was: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web |
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On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:53:36 -0700, "Skitt" <skitt99@comcast.net>
wrote:
| Quote: | Bob Cunningham wrote:
"Skitt" said:
Bob Cunningham wrote:
[...]
I don't know what Outlook Express costs, but I wouldn't
pay two cents for it. If someone wanted to pay me to
use it, I would consider only a very generous offer.
It came free with the computer, and I like it. I tried
Free Agent and hated it. To each his own.
Free Agent was only a pale shadow of Agent. Anyone who has
tried Free Agent and thinks he or she knows what Agent is
probably like is dreadfully wrong.
Anyway, I don't think Forte is offering Free Agent anymore,
but they still offer a free trial of Agent, if I remember
right.
They combined Agent and Free Agent into one program a couple of years |
ago. When you download it, it is in "Free Agent mode". You can switch
to "trial Mode", which unlocks all the features for a limited time (30
days, I think). Unless you pay the money, it then switches back to
"Free Agent mode", which keeps working indefinitely.
| Quote: | Does it do e-mail? I don't want to use separate programs for e-mail and
newsgroups.
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Free Agent will send email, but not receive it. The full Agent will do
both.
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com" |
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R H Draney
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:06 am
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site [was: Re: About that |
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Skitt filted:
| Quote: |
R H Draney wrote:
Nearly everyone went to the page that said "your newsreader ignores
the dot at the end of a URL"...I myself was using a text-only
newsreader at the time that didn't interpret links at all; someone
using a different oddball program was the only one who went to the
other page....r
... and, as you said, this was a few years back. There have been software
updates.
|
An argument could doubtless be made that someone should be able to link to a
page with a dot at the end of its address without making people jump through
hoops to get there...another argument could be made that someone should be able
to include URLs in text without having the surrounding punctuation getting all
caught up in them....
The fun begins when these arguments meet on the field of valor carrying sharp
pointed sticks....r |
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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:06 am
Post subject: Re: Clickable links [was: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web |
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Bob Cunningham wrote:
| Quote: | "Skitt" said:
As I said, I wasn't aware that
there are still newsreaders that don't know where a URL ends.
Actually, you didn't say that. What you said, in effect,
was that some newsreaders, the later and better ones and the
ones that cost money, know where a URL ends.
|
I don't think I included those that cost money. By the time I wrote what I
did, I knew that yours doesn't do it, and I also knew that yours costs
money.
| Quote: | You failed to make allowances for the user who loves a
newsreader for certain of its features while others of its
features might fall short in some respects that the user
considers less important.
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True.
| Quote: | Why make that user copy and paste
in order to spare yourself the inconvenience of typing a
couple of spaces?
|
Well, when I posted that URL I didn't know that Agent still had that
problem. Honest Injun! I might try to make allowances for it, but that
screws up English language writing conventions. I'll try to decide what
sort of presentation is best in this group. There might be other ways to
skin this cat.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:03 pm
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site [was: Re: About that |
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Ted Schuerzinger <fedya@bestweb.spam> wrote:
| Quote: | Somebody claiming to be Joe Fineman <joe_f@verizon.net> wrote in
news:uu0fog91n.fsf@verizon.net:
I imagine "I want to thank" as a colloquial & not very sensible
shortening of "I would like to thank",
And "I would like to thank" *is* sensible? I can't imagine a speaker
saying, "I really wouldn't like to thank you, but that would be
impolite...."
|
By shifting gears, I can imagine the kind of construction that you and
Laura must have in mind:
I would *like* to think that he's competent, but clearly...
I would *like* to say something nice, but I can't think of anything.
That sort of snide "would like ... but" is a special use. The ordinary
use is more like:
I would like two tickets for tonight's performance.
No deep meaning there. Just a construction generally considered polite.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux |
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:03 pm
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site [was: Re: About that |
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Gerald Smyth <geraldsmyth1@yahoo.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Donna Richoux wrote:
[snip]
I'm well aware that phrases that are foreign to one's vocabulary sound
odd, bringing up the wrong associations. That's what makes foreign,
foreign.
That last comma there is positively alien to me....g
|
I'm trying to think of famous quotations that double up words like that.
The closest I can come is:
Matthew 5:37
Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No';
anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux |
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Laura F. Spira
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:11 pm
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site [was: Re: About that |
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Donna Richoux wrote:
| Quote: | Ted Schuerzinger <fedya@bestweb.spam> wrote:
Somebody claiming to be Joe Fineman <joe_f@verizon.net> wrote in
news:uu0fog91n.fsf@verizon.net:
I imagine "I want to thank" as a colloquial & not very sensible
shortening of "I would like to thank",
And "I would like to thank" *is* sensible? I can't imagine a speaker
saying, "I really wouldn't like to thank you, but that would be
impolite...."
By shifting gears, I can imagine the kind of construction that you and
Laura must have in mind:
I would *like* to think that he's competent, but clearly...
I would *like* to say something nice, but I can't think of anything.
That sort of snide "would like ... but" is a special use. The ordinary
use is more like:
I would like two tickets for tonight's performance.
No deep meaning there. Just a construction generally considered polite.
|
I think there's a bit more to it than that. Your example is effectively
a polite request for someone else to act - in this instance, to engage
in a transaction with you - and you could recast it as "Please may I
have two tickets.."
"I want to thank.." can't be recast in the same way since it doesn't
lead to an action on the part of anyone other than the speaker. I think
the inference of some constraint on the action of thanking is thus quite
logical.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email) |
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Ross Howard
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:18 pm
Post subject: Re: The comma's intrinsic meaning [was: Re: _Chicago Manual |
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On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 00:20:47 GMT, Bob Cunningham
<exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrought:
| Quote: | On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 01:05:25 +0100, "Mike Lyle"
mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> said:
Gerald Smyth wrote:
Donna Richoux wrote:
[snip]
I'm well aware that phrases that are foreign to one's vocabulary
sound odd, bringing up the wrong associations. That's what makes
foreign, foreign.
That last comma there is positively alien to me....g
Just plain wrong to me. Misleading.
To me, it's perfectly acceptable. I take it to be
equivalent to "That's what makes foreign ... well, foreign",
but with not so great a pause.
There's nothing wrong with using a comma now and then with
its intrinsic meaning, to signal a pause.
|
Surely a comma's "intrinsic meaning" is to act not as a speech-rhythm
marker but as a syntax-demarcation device. In other words, to use the
analogy of sheet music, it's not so much a rest as a barline between
measures.
Considering that Bob's such a careful and thoughtful (if occasionally,
as here, a tad idiosyncratic) punctuator himself, I was rather taken
aback when I read that remark coming from him. In my experience, much
as AOL is the natural home of the Net nutter, all too often the Pause
School of Commafication is the alma mater of the iffy punctuator.
--
Ross Howard |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:30 pm
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site [was: Re: About that |
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On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 01:16:18 +0200, trio@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux)
wrote:
| Quote: | Laura F. Spira <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote:
Bob Cunningham wrote:
I want to thank you for telling us about that site.
This always strikes me as a very odd construction which seems
predominantly Leftpondian. What does "I want to thank you" add that is
not conveyed by a simple "Thank you" or even "Thank you very much"?
Somehow, I seem to hear a "but" which would be followed by a reason for
*not* giving thanks.
Well, as a person to whom it is a normal phrase, I can say I don't hear
any negativity in it. Setting up the few words before the "thank you"
gives it a certain graceful emphasis and importance that merely blurting
out "Thank you" does not. It also suggests that the desire to thank has
been building up for some time, like "I've been meaning to thank you" or
"I often wished I had the chance to thank you for..."
|
FWIW, the one citation the OED has for it is:
1955 tr. __Maupassant's Compl. Short Stories_ 1237, "I am seven years
old today. As it is the age of reason, I want to thank you for having
brought me into this world."
I like it.
| Quote: | I'm well aware that phrases that are foreign to one's vocabulary sound
odd, bringing up the wrong associations. That's what makes foreign,
foreign.
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--
Charles Riggs |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:30 pm
Post subject: Re: Clickable links [was: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web |
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On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:34:45 -0700, "Skitt" <skitt99@comcast.net>
wrote:
| Quote: | Bob Cunningham wrote:
"Skitt" said:
Yes, there are newsreaders that do not process clickable
links properly.
"Properly"?
Yes, "properly", in the sense of "so it works".
|
An acceptable Briticism from one and all, as I see it. (Hi, Coop!)
....
| Quote: | I wonder if you realize that in order to remove the colon,
it's necessary to take the URL to somewhere where editing is
supported, like the address line in the browser. Do you
understand that that's a lot more trouble than just clicking
on the URL?
I've copied and pasted URLs to IE when that has been necessary. That
happens when someone indicates a message ID without the news:// prefix,
resulting in something that is taken as an e-mail address.
|
I had to do that after I installed Opera, then removed it. I could no
longer click into IE from any source, even though I'd reset IE as my
default browser. The problem was fixed only after I reinstalled
Windows. For the umpteenth time.
--
Charles Riggs |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:30 pm
Post subject: Re: Clickable links [was: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web |
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On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 22:57:02 -0500, Michael Hamm
<msh210@math.wustl.edu> wrote:
| Quote: | On Tue, 11 Oct 2005, Bob Cunningham wrote, in part:
If anyone has a newsreader that won't let you click on a URL
that's preceded and followed by spaces, I would appreciate
hearing about it.
I use PINE. It allows me to click on anything I like, but doing so
doesn't accomplish anything.
|
My best chuckle of the morning. The Boredom Index dropped a bit on
that one.
--
Charles Riggs |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:30 pm
Post subject: Re: Clickable links [was: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web |
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On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:53:36 -0700, "Skitt" <skitt99@comcast.net>
wrote:
| Quote: | Bob Cunningham wrote:
"Skitt" said:
Bob Cunningham wrote:
[...]
I don't know what Outlook Express costs, but I wouldn't
pay two cents for it. If someone wanted to pay me to
use it, I would consider only a very generous offer.
It came free with the computer, and I like it. I tried
Free Agent and hated it. To each his own.
Free Agent was only a pale shadow of Agent. Anyone who has
tried Free Agent and thinks he or she knows what Agent is
probably like is dreadfully wrong.
Anyway, I don't think Forte is offering Free Agent anymore,
but they still offer a free trial of Agent, if I remember
right.
Does it do e-mail? I don't want to use separate programs for e-mail and
newsgroups.
|
I must strenuously object to this practice. I say, use a program
designed for newsgroups for newsgroups and one specifically designed
for email for email. One doesn't eat peas using a spoon for the same
reason. I use Eudora, a quirky but excellent program once you
understand the quirks, on one computer and Outlook on another.
I'd use Outlook -- a near-perfect product -- on both, but Microsoft
won't let me because I'd installed Outlook on a second computer, now
disused, already. I could talk with the good folks at Microsoft,
Dublin, to straighten this out, but haven't gotten a round toit.
--
Charles Riggs |
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