TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I think there is a point being missed in this thread. While grammar may be
full of rules, some flexible and some not so felxible, and while people may
argue over the applicaiton of both sets of rules, grammar is also about
"ear."
That doesn't mean anything that sounds "right" is good grammar. But good
grammar generally does have good "ear," while "correct" grammar sometimes
does not. (An excellent book that espouses considering "ear" when
considering grammitical issues is Lyn Dupre's "Bugs in Writing."
Making sure this thread has a tech writing bent, three are also audience
considerations. Who are your readers, and will a sentence that doens't have
good "ear" cause a stumble in the reading and perhaps lead to the real
mesage being missed? Does forcing an "is" because a dictionary imples that
"heaquarters" is singular results in readers doing a mental double take
because thier experience suggests that with the "s" that an "are" should
have been used?
Most grammar books don't take "ear" into account, and are often prescriptive
at the cost of stilted or verbose language. We as technical communicators
have as one responsiblity to make sure that the message isn't being muddied
by the allegedly inflexible rules of composing that mesage.
--
"[Programmers] cannot successfully be asked to design for users
because...inevitably, they will make judgments based on the
difficulty of coding and not on the user's real needs."
- Alan Cooper
"About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design"
Chuck Martin
twriter "at" sonic "dot" net www.writeforyou.com
"Burt, Genevieve" <GBurt -at- lrs -dot- com> wrote in message news:86240 -at- techwr-l -dot- -dot- -dot-
> To answer a question like yours, you just need to ask yourself this:
> Is the word "headquarters" an "it" or a "they"?
>
> The word "headquarters" MUST refer to one place, by definition: Merriam
> Webster's says that headquarters is "the administrative center of an
> enterprise," and as far as I know, there can only be one center to
something
> (have you ever heard of a doughnut with two holes?).
>
> So the word "headquarters" is referring to one thing. One thing is a
> singular noun. This means that the original version of the sentence is
> correct because it's just like asking, "Where is it?"
>
> So "Where is your headquarters?" is grammatically correct.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Develop HTML-based Help with Macromedia Dreamweaver! (STC Discount.)
**NEW DATE/LOCATION!** January 16-17, 2001, New York, NY. http://www.weisner.com/training/dreamweaver_help.htm or 800-646-9989.
Sponsored by DigiPub Solutions Corp, producers of PDF 2001
Conference East, June 4-5, Baltimore/Washington D.C. area. http://www.pdfconference.com or toll-free 877/278-2131.
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
