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Writing Wrongs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2013

E.N. Kaufmann

Abstract

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Type
Posterminaries
Information
MRS Bulletin , Volume 24 , Issue 5 , May 1999 , pp. 79 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1999

References

1 Neither is the period exempt. The perennial issue as to whether a period may end an equation that is grammatically at the end of a sentence has widerved with the rise of the internet where the big question is whether a period may end a (or an) URL.

2 For technical articles, this goes far beyond the simple issue of voiced versus the unvoiced ‘H’s as in, e.g., an hour versus a hospital (or Eliza Doolittle's “an 'ospital”). We must decide between an Au (aurum) alloy and a Au (gold) alloy. Worse yet, decide among a Fe (ferrum) magnet, an Fe (iron) magnet, and an Fe (ef-ee) magnet. Any Symbol or acronym (like LN2 and SEM) that begins with a consonant whose name begins with a vowel presents the same dichotomy.

3 We can only suspect that giving birth to a tome is in some respects (labor, pain, and satisfaction) not unlike the biological analogue.

4 By now every author who knows this author as an editor believes these complaints are about them. And, by now, every editor who knows this author as an author believes these complaints are about them. Of course, they are all quite right!

5 Fortunately, Posterminaries suffers little from any of these complaints. Everything here is discretionary. We may toy with the language with impunity, invent terminology on a whim, have no serious topic at all, and hide comfortably behind poetic license. The price of freedom from editorial tyranny is being pushed off the last page to make way for a classified ad. Serious authors need not apply.