Spacing in French: figuring out how to punctuate professionally

With the French edition of Lucire KSA now out, we’ve been hard at work on the second issue. The first was typeset by our colleagues in Cairo (with the copy subbed by me), but this time it falls on us, and I had to do a lot of research on French composition.    There are […]

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COVID-19 infections as a percentage of tests done, June 28

I haven’t done one of these since February, where I look at the COVID-19 positivity rates of selected countries. The arrows indicate the direction of change since that post. Happily, I imagine with the vaccine roll-outs, we are seeing drops, though there is a new wave in Taiwan, contributing to a rise; other territories showing […]

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Breaking Hart’s

Usually, all our publications use Hart’s Rules. It’s well understood, enough compositors know it, and it’s a credible enough style guide for us to point at and use as a defence. There are some departures, which so far few have complained to me about.    1. Citation style. The OUP publishes The British Year Book […]

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LOL, Wag, flat white added to Oxford English Dictionary

A few new words and meanings—45,437 to be exact—have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary, report the mainstream media.    LOL is one, which I have always taken to mean little old lady, and have almost always used it in that context.    Turns out that that was what the acronym originally stood for, […]

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