jadesfire: Bright yellow flower (Random - Cat in glasses)
[personal profile] jadesfire
There may be actual content later. Or not. We'll see how we go.

In the meantime, some links that came up this morning and I thought you might like:

Asus and Intel invite people to design their ideal computer

Clive James has some news on the next Bond film (remember to bring your pinch of salt to this article ;))

Councils try to ban the use of Latin. I have mixed feelings about this one. Some phrases *are* confusing, although you can normally work out what they mean from context. But "e.g." and "etc" shouldn't be, I wouldn't have thought. It's trickier than it sounds from the headline, shockingly [/sarcasm]

Secrets of Great Characters according to 6 sci-fi authors. Great, great advice on building characters and worlds for them, applicable to all writing, not just science-fiction. Including contributions from Elizabeth Bear and Kim Stanley Robinson.

(no subject)

Date: 2008-11-03 10:00 am (UTC)
unfeathered: (For the love of grammar)
From: [personal profile] unfeathered
OMG, that Latin thing! How incredibly pathetic can you get! Even if the average reading age is 12, surely everyone uses 'etc.' and 'eg' by that age!

(P.S. Jack is intrigued by your cat wearing glasses - he says he's 'cool'!)

(no subject)

Date: 2008-11-03 10:05 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jadesfire2808.livejournal.com
I think it's one of those 50/50 things. Sometimes people writing documents *do* use Latin just to show off, but often it's because the Latin says it more succinctly. And there's a strong argument for saying that if you only aim the reading level at age 12, people will never progress beyond that. But things *should* be written in plain English where possible. I tend to go for the "use it, explain it the first time, then go on using it" approach, but I can understand councils with high numbers of non-English speakers wanting to cut back. The problem comes in drawing the line between 'cutting back' and 'eliminating', which I think is where these things tend to go wrong.

*climbs off soapbox*

(*g* tell him thanks! I have some very cute cat icons but that one makes me giggle :D)

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