Re: Datum: unintentionally-repeated words
- From: "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 13:32:38 -0400
On Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:59:54 -0400, Joy Beeson
<jbeeson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:74gdg3d0dtiik7jfm8b1pf7mhbbueb1noj@xxxxxxx> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
[...]
"Spell it out on first reference", on the other hand *is*
a prescriptive rule; you are sure to find it in any
newspaper stylebook, because it is wrong, wrong, wrong to
use an expression that the reader doesn't have a fair
chance to understand and explain it only later.
'It wasn't very impressive -- actually, it was very
UNimpressive, hardly worth notice, let alone mention -- and
I thought nothing of it at the time, but it's now clear that
I ought to have told my doctor about it three months ago
when the tingling started.'
I've a real weakness for sentences like that, but for some
reason people are always interrupting them.
[...]
"Define and use", as we may call this rule, is definitely
a part of Algebra, which some claim to be an
international language: "Let A be the number of apples
to be stored, B be the number of baskets required to
store the apples, and C be the number of apples which can
be stored in a basket, then A/C = B."
Hmph. 'B = ceil(A/C),' he said discretely, 'unless you're
going to use the empty space in the partially filled basket
to store something else.'
Brian
.
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