|
Share this page
Quick links
Add feed 
|
|
The Persuader
My personal blog, started in 2006. No paid or guest posts, no link sales.
Posts tagged ‘The Times’
27.07.2019
I thought I could be archaic on a few things—I still use diphthongs in text in our publications (æsthetic, Cæsar), the trio of inst., ult. and prox. in written correspondence, and even fuel economy occasionally in mpg (Imperial) because I am useless at ℓ/100 km and too few countries use km/ℓ. However, even I had to cringe at Jacob Rees-Mogg’s style guide as revealed by ITV. This has now been circulated to his House of Commons staff. It is not satire.
His first rule is ‘Organisations are SINGULAR’. (No, this isn’t licence to write ‘Organisations is singular.’) I don’t mind this as it’s one I adopt myself (admittedly inconsistently), but note the spelling of the first word. It’s French. The correct spelling is organizations, and the switch to the French in the Anglosphere appears to have happened postwar. Go to English books that are old enough, and you’ll find the z to be more commonplace. (Please don’t comment that z is ‘American’ before doing some research.)
His sixth rule is ‘Double space after fullstops’. Now, the last word should be two words, but the rule itself has even been abandoned by the newspaper that Rees-Mogg’s father edited for so many years. Most compositors in Britain abandoned large spaces at the start of the 20th century, by my reckoning—my interpretation of the reading studies by Tinker et al is that the single space is sufficient, and web convention agrees. If we are to follow The Times in, say, 1969, we also need to insert spaces around certain other punctuation marks. If you find a copy from around that time, I can promise you it won’t be easy to read.
What is apparent to me is that the rules have been typed up, at least, by an amateur, which accounts for the poor spacing and inconsistent capitalization, and generally it shows a disregard for professional style guides (again, we return to The Times). Sometimes, the acorn does fall far from the tree.
I note that Imperial measurements are to be used again: none of this newfangled metric system nonsense. As I do some transactions in pounds sterling, I am going to refresh my memory on shillings, half-crowns and thruppenny bits in case currency decimalization is reversed. You never know, Johnson’s Britain may find the decimal system too Johnny Foreigner for its liking. ‘They cannot, and will not, change our sausage!’
Tags: 2019, composition, England, history, ITV, language, media, newspaper, orthography, publishing, style guide, The Times, typesetting, typography, UK
Posted in culture, politics, publishing, typography, UK | 3 Comments »
25.05.2018
Tristan Schmurr/Creative Commons
Welcome to another of my “I told you they were dodgy” posts. This time, it’s not about Facebook or Google (which, finally, are receiving the coverage that should have been metered out years ago), but Wikipedia.
The latest is on a Wikipedia editor called ‘Philip Cross’, a story which Craig Murray has been following on his blog.
Start with this one, where Murray notes that Cross has not had a single day off from editing Wikipedia between August 29, 2013 and May 14, 2018, including Christmas Days.
And this one.
Both note that Cross edits Wikipedia entries on antiwar and antiestablishment figures, making them more negative and stripping away the positive, and concerns raised by other Wikipedia editors amount to naught. Cross is known to be against the UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and has devoted a lot of time to George Galloway’s page. However, he likes right-wing Times columnists Oliver Kamm and Melanie Phillips.
Matt Kennard Tweeted on May 12:
while on May 21, Twitter user Leftworks said:
In other words, suggesting that someone play by the rules on Wikipedia will get you threatened with a ban from Wikipedia.
Now you get the idea, you can check out Murray’s subsequent blog posts on the subject:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/emma-barnett-a-classic-philip-cross-wikipedia-operation/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-cross-msm-promotion-operation-part-3/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/philip-cross-madness-part-iv/
Whether you believe Philip Cross is one person or not, it highlights what I’ve said on this blog and formerly on Vox in the 2000s: that certain editors can scam their way to the top and not be questioned. I know first-hand that publicly criticizing Wikipedia could get me hate mail, as had happened last decade when I was subjected to days of email abuse from one senior editor based in Canada. That time I merely linked to a piece which talked about the dangers of Wikipedia and how some editors had scammed it—all that editor unwittingly did with her emails was confirm that position (no one says that all scammers are smart) and since then, observing Wikipedia has cemented it. Interestingly, both the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia’s remaining co-founder Jimmy Wales are quick to defend Cross, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that “he” is biased.
Facebook’s idea of using Wikipedia to combat “fake news” is about as moronic a decision one can make.
Now that there are voices adding to my own, and on far more serious matters than non-existent cars, I can only hope people will, at the least, treat Wikipedia with caution. If you choose to stop donating to them, I wouldn’t blame you.
Tags: 2010s, 2018, abuse, blogosphere, Craig Murray, internet, Jimmy Wales, law, libel, Murdoch Press, politics, publishing, The Times, UK, Wikipedia
Posted in internet, media, politics, publishing, technology, UK, USA | 1 Comment »
|
