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We are also a networking company. No one here ever uses the term "dial-up"
as a verb so it sounds very strange to me. The Microsoft Manual of Style
says to use the word as an adjective only (never a verb) and it should
always be hyphenated.
Unfortunately "connecting" is exactly what you are doing when you contact
your ISP through your modem, I don't really see how you can get around that
word. It is a large part of our business. I'm sorry I don't have any
fabulous suggestions.
If you get something interesting sent to you off list, I'd be interested as
well.
Good luck.
Barb
On Tuesday, July 11, 2000 2:22 PM, Gil Yaker [SMTP:gyaker -at- mci -dot- net] wrote:
> Quickie:
>
> What's a good way to say X network or customer connects to Y network or
> customer using Z hardware layer?
>
> For instance: Gil Yaker connects to his ISP with a 56k analog modem.
BLECH
> that sounds like hell. the bastardization of the noun dialup to a verb
> sounds so much better: Gil Yaker dials up to his ISP with a 56k analog
> modem. still jargonish, but understandable by all in the telecom
industry.
>
> Well what's really bad now is that I have to write about more industrial
> connections. So here's a typical sentence:
> Univerity of Anywhere uses a DS-3 connection to access the vBNS+ network
> backbone.
> I mean I just can't get over how weak that sounds.
>
> Anyone who has been writing like this for a while, pls help! Verbs like
> Connect and Access seem to feel diluted by the end of the day. We're
using
> defined hardware protocols to connect (there I go again) routers around
the
> country! I'm just getting frustrated that all the wordings in the dox I'm
> writing do not shine, err if you know what I mean.
>
> I never really ran into this problem when I was documenting software.
It's
> all quite odd!
>
> Anyway, thanks for any help :)
>
> Gil Yaker tel:703/886.1816
> Technical Writer fax:703/886.0048
> WorldCom vBNS+ gyaker -at- mci -dot- net
> /// very high-performance Backbone Network Service+ ///
>
