Hello Bernard The use of “never” is deliberate as it does make it easier to translate English. Also, using the “Never” items in a document does make it harder for a user whose mother tongue is not English to understand what is meant. I have had experience of this.
I have not heard of George Miller, but will now look him up. Regards Peter Schofield [email protected] > On 27 Mar 2020, at 12:49, Poole, Bernard J <[email protected]> wrote: > > I like these rules, Peter, with one question mark: Should the word "Never" be > replaced by the word "Rarely?" > > I'm thinking especially of Rule 3 where the possessive apostrophe is > sometimes hard to work around without making a sentence unnecessarily > awkward. I think there should be exceptions allowed for this rule, don't you > think? > > Essentially, Peter, your ideas here echo those of George Miller (1956), with > whom you are no doubt already aware: > > https://www.informationmapping.com/in/resources/blog/writing-for-the-web-the-magical-number-seven-plus-or-minus-two > > I wrote a paper related to this subject as it pertains to Software > Engineering: > > Poole, Bernard J., Noreen L. Prokop, "Miller's Magical Number: A Heuristic > Applied to Software Engineering," in > INFORMATION EXECUTIVE, Journal of the Data Processing Management Association, > June 1989. > > I'd love to know your thoughts on this. > > Bernard > > Bernard John Poole, MSIS, PGCE > Associate Professor Emeritus CS & Education > University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown > Johnstown, PA 15904, USA > e-mail: [email protected] > home page: www.pitt.edu/~poole > ---- > “This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for > complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple. The > philosophy is kindness.” (The Dalai Lama) > > ________________________________________ > From: Peter Schofield <[email protected]> > Sent: Friday, March 27, 2020 4:23 AM > To: LibreOffice > Subject: [libreoffice-documentation] Writing techniques > > After going through the meeting notes (which I could not attend), I though > that it maybe a good idea to air my views about writing standards. > > The following ideas come from my experience in working within Simplified > English rules when I worked for Airbus and Ericcson. > > 1. Paragraphs no more the six sentences long. > 2. Sentences should only contain a maximum of 20 words, with the occasional > sentence allowed to be 25 words. > 3. Never use the possessive apostrophe (for example Peter’s). Rewrite the > sentence to remove the need for a possessive apostrophe. > 4. Never use contractions of words (for example: don’t becomes do not; won’t > becomes will not, and so on) > 5. Never use Latin abbreviations (for example: etc becomes and so on; e.g. > becomes for example; i.e. becomes that is). > > There are many more rules, but the above basic rules are a good start. They > are designed to make English text easier to translate into other languages > and that is why it is called Simplified English. > > Please let me know your opinion. > > Regards > Peter Schofield > [email protected] > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected] > Problems? > https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.libreoffice.org%2Fget-help%2Fmailing-lists%2Fhow-to-unsubscribe%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cpoole%40pitt.edu%7C1413db2756b74c92e1be08d7d2283990%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C1%7C637208942524998701&sdata=%2BX0NlagMob1VRV5MH6v0bFLmLGQ1cxYm2EjUCvuUOLM%3D&reserved=0 > Posting guidelines + more: > https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki.documentfoundation.org%2FNetiquette&data=02%7C01%7Cpoole%40pitt.edu%7C1413db2756b74c92e1be08d7d2283990%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C1%7C637208942524998701&sdata=GlGKJzamKk5UkG7cntot4eJUEc%2Fq%2B5i7w29HqJYBdTA%3D&reserved=0 > List archive: > https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flistarchives.libreoffice.org%2Fglobal%2Fdocumentation%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cpoole%40pitt.edu%7C1413db2756b74c92e1be08d7d2283990%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C1%7C637208942524998701&sdata=0NhzhWQP3FkgFwfEnqHzxAoY2bYvMbJQesGlUxZW4s0%3D&reserved=0 > Privacy Policy: > https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.documentfoundation.org%2Fprivacy&data=02%7C01%7Cpoole%40pitt.edu%7C1413db2756b74c92e1be08d7d2283990%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C1%7C637208942524998701&sdata=AFo52hCEGSMQam%2BOt%2BUMrYoIhMF3aukqSNq84QCj4wc%3D&reserved=0 -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
