David Combs

I never got a chance to look at your book (draft) (you never
sent me one to proof). Nontheless, I'll make two sight-unseen
suggestions that would apply to most books these days (in which
there is no longer anyone employed as editor at these publishing
houses -- at least from what I see coming out of them).

.. "only" -- placement of. Must usually, these careless days,
the word "only" is placed *way too soon", ie not before the
word it's supposed to modify. As in:

I'm only going to read his book, not hers.

, unless he's going to not only read but then shred (or something) hers.

.. The final comma: A, B, and C.

NEWSPAPERS and POPULAR MAGAZINES have the rule of leaving
out that final comma: A, B and C.

(Well, seems almost a matter of religious faith, this
leaving it out. Sure makes things ambiguous, though.)


.. That vs which: If you have a "which" that's *not*
mmediately preceded by a comma, perhaps it either
*needs* a comma, or should instead be a "that".


Those are right off the top of my head, for now.

*IF* your book-"sources" are ascii files (as would be
if you were using latex, Scribe (which I use), nroff, etc),
then I have some neat tricks combining gnu-grep and emacs,
making it *very* efficient to whip through a book (all its
files) looking for things to change/fix.

David

PS: BTW, I *like* proofing books, both for "style" and
for technical explanations (if *I* can understand it,
*anyone* can ;-).

Rich Teer

On Tue, 13 Apr 2004, David Combs wrote:

> I never got a chance to look at your book (draft) (you never
> sent me one to proof). Nontheless, I'll make two sight-unseen
> suggestions that would apply to most books these days (in which
> there is no longer anyone employed as editor at these publishing
> houses -- at least from what I see coming out of them).

Err, was this meant to be an email for me?

> . The final comma: A, B, and C.
>
> NEWSPAPERS and POPULAR MAGAZINES have the rule of leaving
> out that final comma: A, B and C.
>
> (Well, seems almost a matter of religious faith, this
> leaving it out. Sure makes things ambiguous, though.)

I prefer leaving it in, but my copy editor thinks otherwise.
But I get the last say, bwahahahaha!

> *IF* your book-"sources" are ascii files (as would be
> if you were using latex, Scribe (which I use), nroff, etc),

Yes, it is in plain ASCII. (AKA, RTF - Rich Teer Format. :-))

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net

Anthony Mandic

Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Apr 2004, David Combs wrote:
>
> > I never got a chance to look at your book (draft) (you never
> > sent me one to proof). Nontheless, I'll make two sight-unseen
> > suggestions that would apply to most books these days (in which
> > there is no longer anyone employed as editor at these publishing
> > houses -- at least from what I see coming out of them).
>
> Err, was this meant to be an email for me?
>
> > . The final comma: A, B, and C.
> >
> > NEWSPAPERS and POPULAR MAGAZINES have the rule of leaving
> > out that final comma: A, B and C.
> >
> > (Well, seems almost a matter of religious faith, this
> > leaving it out. Sure makes things ambiguous, though.)
>
> I prefer leaving it in, but my copy editor thinks otherwise.
> But I get the last say, bwahahahaha!

My memory is that both are acceptable.

What you want to avoid is "A, B, and C,." ;-)