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Subject:Re: MS Manual of Style From:Nea Dodson <NeaDods -at- AOL -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 22 Oct 1997 22:34:11 -0400
>I'm wondering how many others on this list also use the
>MS-MANUAL OF STYLE
My company does, and it ranked highly as a reference source in the informal
poll I took a few weeks ago.
>and how many of those that do so also find it prudent to make
> some exceptions to the Microsoft rules.
Yes! Most notably, the word "diskette" and the phrase "click on." MS says
neither is correct. But when you're talking about moving stuff from your
hard drive to a floppy drive, it's simpler to type "copy from your hard drive
to diskette" than it is to type "copy from your hard drive to your floppy
drive."
As for "click on" I have argued that the phrase should be used on one
occasion - when referring to text links on web pages. It's best to say
"click the button" or "click the link" when the button and link are discrete
entities. However, when a link is text embedded in text, as many web links
are, saying "click the link" is just too vague for documentation aimed at
beginners. So in that case only I argue for "click *on* the link to..."
Nea
who got swamped with a suddenly moved deadline and will post the second half
of the survey results Real Soon Now
