Grammar

[Jeff Schering]

On 3/8/06, Rocco Stanzione <grasshopper at linuxkungfu.org> wrote:
> On Tuesday 07 March 2006 23:35, Jeff Schering wrote:
> > setup vs set up does not belong in Commonly Confused Words; it's not
> > in the same class. You can find "setup" and  "set up" in Word List.
>
> I'm not sure I understand the purpose of the word list.  I do think "setup"
> vs. "set up" is in the same class as "everyday" vs. "every day", which is in
> Commonly Confused Words, but as I mentioned elsewhere maybe we can replace
> that section with a link to a more complete list.  I think it would be
> helpful to limit the scope of the style guide to style rather than spelling
> and grammar reminders, as I think you mentioned before.
>

A word list is part of a publisher's or editor's stylesheet. As you
edit material (such as a book) you make note of such things as "set
up" vs "setup" because by the time you get to the end of a book you
may not remember whether you were using "set up" as a verb or a noun,
or if you used the single word form throughout, or some other
convention

As an editor, you use the stylesheet that the publisher provides you.
You usually create another one as you edit; it covers stuff not in the
publisher's stylesheet.

If you want an example of a word list in use by a publisher, see the
O'reilly stylesheet and word list:
http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/author/stylesheet.html

The main purpose of the word list is to ensure consistency of spelling
and usage throughout a document and across a set of documents, because
quite often there is more than one legitimate way to spell a word. The
word list ensures consistent use of one of those ways.

Commonly confused words are words that have more than different
spellings; they typically have significant differences in meaning too.
For example, the difference between "accept" and "except" is not just
spelling. When you come across these types of error in a document,
it's usually because the writer is confused about which one to use; he
is using one of them when he actually means the other.

In general, the list of confusables contains errors of grammar or
meaning, but the word list contains conventions of style. However, as
in all things, there are grey areas. You point out one with "everyday"
and "setup." They shouldn't be in both places so I have put them where
they are based on my current knowledge and the examples set by those
more experienced than myself. (You will find "setup" in the O'Reilly
word list, but you will not find the word "everyday.")

Cheers,
Jeff

--
Jeff Schering
GPG: F23C67E8