My Editor Forbids spaces, apostrophes, punctuation, etc

[Cathy Krusberg <ckberg -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Randy Grandle <randy -dot- grandle -at- corp -dot- sun -dot- com> said:

>My editor has convinced my manager that spaces, apostrophes,
>and punctuation marks in general are outmoded relics of an era
>when typewriters were commonly used for technical  documentation.
>Moreover, my editor has pointed out that eliminating spaces,
>apostrophes, and punctuation marks will save disk space

 [snip]

Your editor is not alone.  For a good scare, read the following
post (slightly edited for length from its original appearance
on misc.writing):

>From: weaseltrax -at- earthlink -dot- net (Weasel Tracks)
>Newsgroups: misc.writing
>Subject: Re: Good editing experiences?
>Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 13:23:41 -0500

>I are a editur.

>Writer, too, which is not unusual.

>I had thought to become a Web designer last winter, and soaked
>up HTML like a sponge. When I noticed that designers are a dime
>a dozen, and hundreds, if not thousands, were several jumps
>ahead of me in CGI and Java, I rethought the situation.
>   Many of the most sophisticated sites had typos, misspellings,
>and jarringly bad grammar in the text. I think some of the
>designers have a pschological problem with spelling checkers.
>Where there's such a need, there's an economic niche.

>Some writers (and a good many Web designers) question the need
>for editing to conform to all those stupid rules. One person
>whose files I offered to fix up sent me the following, a perfect
>example why we use conventions:

>Subject: $BGO</(J$BGO</(J$BGO</(J$BGO</(J$BGO</(J

>thegreatwritersthroughoutenglishhistorydidnotreallycarehow
>theyspelleduntilthemiddleclassbecameliterateandstartedmaking
>abigdealoutofitithinktheyfoundittobesomethingtheirbrainscouldunderstand
>youknowmemorizationandconformitythanksbutnothanksonyourofferbythe
>waymostofmywritinggetsdonelateatnightbecauseiamtoobusylearningimportant
>stuffwhileothersaresimplycomplainingabouthowothersdontconformliketheydo

>This is not on the lines of Laura's request, but it brought a
>chuckle to *my* belly, anyway.

>   ---Weasel Tracks

>--
>http://home.earthlink.net/~weaseltrax


Randy Grandle continues:

>At first I opposed these new style guidelines that eliminate
>all instances of spaces, apostrophes, and punctuation marks.
>It meant I would have to work around the clock for the next
>10 years to make our documentation conform to the new style
>guidelines.

Surely you've got something that can search/replace a few gigs
of documentation faster than that?


I can't decide whether any of this is funny or not.  Back to
studying Japanese (which uses punctuation but doesn't put
space between words). (Hm, maybe we *can* learn from them....)

Cathy Krusberg
Internet: ckberg -at- ix -dot- netcom -dot- com

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