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Re: Archive vs. Archives

Subject: Re: Archive vs. Archives
From: Jan Boomsliter <boomah -at- CONCENTRIC -dot- NET>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 21:52:40 -0800

Well now I'm thinking about what I should have in the first place: how is your doc going to be used? by whom? For example, are you telling your audience how to find and use archives, or telling them what's in the XYZ Reports archive? If the latter, seems to me the use of plural could be confusing.

Jan
no charge  :-)

TechWriter wrote:

Hi Jan,Thanks for your .02c (after taxes). The word "Report" is part of the title of the document, hence the capitalization. To complicate it even further, each (weekly) report is itself a compilation of 8-15 individual reports of various types.I think I agree with you that "archive" is preferable, but it seems that "archives" is the preferred colloquial term for one "archive." Even Webster's says archive is "often used in plural."This is all hair-splitting, but I can't seem to get a consensus as to which way to go. ARGH!Thanks,Larry
-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Boomsliter [mailto:boomah -at- concentric -dot- net]
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 1999 9:28 PM
To: Larry Hoffenberg
Subject: Re: Archive vs. Archives
Are either "Report" or "Reports" part of the title of the doc?  If not part of the title, then "report/reports" is a description, yes? (If the word is part of the title, you use whichever word is in the title, of course.) If it's not part of the title, you are archiving the XYZ, whether one issue or a zillion.

 Also use the singular for archive, because you are referring to only one archive, not several.

Therefore, "Welcome to the XYZ report archive."

Jan
$0.02 please.

Larry Hoffenberg wrote:

Greetings All,

I'd like to get a quick second opinion on how to phrase this concept, which
is the first sentence on a section home page on an intranet.

"Welcome to the XYZ Report archive."

  vs.

"Welcome to the XYZ Reports archive."

  vs.

"Welcome to the XYZ Report archives."

Should the item being stored in the repository be considered singular or
plural? Would you consider the repository itself to be singular or plural?

I'd appreciate any comments and analysis.

Thanks,
Larry Hoffenberg

TechWriter -at- att -dot- net

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join the LIBERTARIAN PARTY!  www.lp.org

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