Why I Like “That”
—When it’s used as a relative pronoun to introduce a subordinate clause. Not that I like the conversation in the comic, but the speech in the second panel is a good example of how using “that” after the verb “sorry” removes ambiguity.
I’m a technical writer by trade, and I hate ambiguity. The period also removes the ambiguity, but you can’t hear a period.
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A History of Computer Typography
If you’re into typography or desktop publishing, this rather long article should be intresting to you. Here are a couple paragraphs and one of the pictures in the article. the other illustrations are more, um, picturesque.
See the link at the end of this post to get the rest.Over its nearly 25-year history, lasting from 1981 to 2005, the Seybold Desktop Publishing Conference, also known as Seybold Seminars, don’t have the computer-history pedigree of massive tradeshows like Comdex or CES. It was a fairly narrow, niche affair, focused on the art of print design and the way that computers could push it forward.
But there was a time that technology giants took this event seriously, because of the outsize role that desktop publishing played in the computer industry at the time. In 1989, it was a niche that mattered.
And in 1989, it was where a schism between three brand-name technology companies appeared.
Tensions were high, as highlighted by what the CEO of one of those companies, Adobe cofounder John Warnock, reportedly said during a speech: “That’s the biggest bunch of garbage and mumbo jumbo. … What these people are selling you is snake oil!”
Here’s a link to the article: https://tedium.co/2023/07/26/digital-typography-technology-truetype-history
The Same But Different
Our words of the day, folks, are homonym and homophone. Here are a bunch of samples:
Here’s the tricky part. :
- Two words are spelled the same but pronounced differently
- Two words are spelled differently but pronounced the same
- Two words have the same meaning
- Two words have different meanings
Okay, which is which? The words can be in more than one list item.
- homophone
- homonym,
- synonym
Just a Pun
Well, maybe a few comments, too. Here it s:
A pun is when a word has two meanings at once.
Oxymoron is a real word. It’s the word for a self-contradictory phrase, such as “quiet explosion.”
I guess having one’s eyes crossed and tongue hanging out are signs of low IQ, hence moron. What do you think?
Another Tech Writer Comic
Maybe she’s not exactly a tech writer, but sometimes we need to do this.
With some experience, this isn’t too hard to do. Keep the readership in mind when you do it.