[Dixonary] Off Topic: House Style Sheet

[Dodi Schultz]

Johnny,

"_" or "*", applied at the beginning and end of a word, is generally used
to mean italics, since that may frequently be used in a dictionary
definition but cannot be shown in plaintext other than by symbols fore and
aft. They are not symbols for quotation marks, since we all have those on
our keyboards.

I don't think there's any confusion, but I'd certainly have no objection to
our agreeing to use one and not the other.

--Dodi

[Daniel B. Widdis]

Dodi Schultz wrote:
>
> "_" or "*", applied at the beginning and end of a word, is generally used
> to mean italics

Personally, I've taken to the convention that /slashes/ represent
italics, _underscores_ represent underlines, and *asterisks* represent
boldface text. That's the convention that my email client (Thunderbird)
uses, and automatically converts for me when reading/writing a message
marked appropriately.

Dictionary definitions rarely (if ever?) use anything other than
italics. I have assumed either underscores or parentheses are
interchangeable as far as this list goes, although I'd like to switch to
the slashes, if I had my druthers.

--
Dan

[Bill Hirst]

--- In coryphaeus (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com, "Daniel B. Widdis" <widdis@g...>
wrote:
>
> Dodi Schultz wrote:
> >
> > "_" or "*", applied at the beginning and end of a word, is
generally used
> > to mean italics
>
> Personally, I've taken to the convention that /slashes/ represent
> italics, _underscores_ represent underlines, and *asterisks*
represent
> boldface text. That's the convention that my email client
(Thunderbird)
> uses, and automatically converts for me when reading/writing a
message
> marked appropriately.
>
I have to side with Dodi. I've been indoctrinated by hanging out in
a writer's forum (GEnie's SFRT) that underlines in a manuscript
indicate italics. Since we can't underline in plain text messages,
we indicate it with an underscore on each side of the _italic_ word.

--Bill

[Bill Hirst]

Of course there's Yahoo's rich text editor, which has all sorts of color and font choices to really make a message look ugly!!!!!!!!!!!
I suggest we resist the temptation.

--Bill





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[bonnyjars]

People

OK, 'house-style' may have been a bit OTT but I guess what was needed is the plain simple statement somewhere what conventions that
'we' currently use mean. I had no idea that _ means italic.

I fully understand the requirement for plaintext conventions (that is all I ever use)

I also was looking to aid da dealer in terms of the amount of work involved in conforming defs. And it isn't only just
<get-round-plaintext> conventions, for different dictionaries do things in different ways too.

JohnnyB




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[Hugo Kornelis]

Hi Johnny,

> I guess what was needed is the plain simple statement somewhere what
conventions that
> 'we' currently use mean. I had no idea that _ means italic.

The problem is that there apparently isn't a single convention for this.

The convention that I (until recently) though was the only convention is:
* Use _underscores_ for underlines
* Use *asterisks* for italics
* Use ALL CAPS for bold face

Now, in this discussion, I have already seen three other conventions:

* Use _underscores_ for underlines
* Use /slashes/ for italics
* Use *asteisks* for bold face
(Dan and Thunderbird email program)

* Use _underscores_ or *asterisks* for italics
* Nothing specified for underlines or bold face
(Dodi and Bill - apparently becuase somewhere else, underlines are used
instead of italics.)

* Use _underscores_ for italics
* Nothing specified for underlines or bold face
(Scott)

Note that Scotts convention is compatible with both Dans and mine. And that
with Bill's explanation of why underlines are used instead of italics in a
specific writer's forum, Dodis and Bills convention is compatible with mine,
but not with Dans.

Personally, I don't mind which of these conventions gets used here. But I
agree that it would be nice if we could all settle for one single set of
conventions. Since many definitions in the past have used _underscores_ for
italics and few defs have used other conventions, I have no problem with
settling for that convention (even though it's different from what I'm used
to).

Best, Hugo

[bonnyjars]

Hugo

I agree we need some convention and I don't mind what it is


But as I said I think we need a convention for the way we do it too: I have just looked up a set of word in several different
dictionaries and found

Here using _italic_
BOLD
*underline*

WORD - definition [_etymology_:<example>:_expansion_]

WORD definition [etymology] _expansion_:example _if scientific in example_

WORD definition:[expansion] _etymology_ :[_scientific notes (including example)_]

Etc

I'd like it simple; something like

WORD: definition [etymology _example or expansion_]


JohnnyB





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[Dave Cunningham]

Um -- in all my years of playing, I do not recall a single vote hinging on the way the def was presented! (In fact, I do pretty well voting for ones with typos or which look "wrong" for a def <g>)

Dave

[Daniel B. Widdis]

Hugo Kornelis wrote:
>
> * Use _underscores_ for underlines
> * Use /slashes/ for italics
> * Use *asteisks* for bold face
> (Dan and Thunderbird email program)

And the iPod, too! See http://www.podsites.com/style.cfm#emphasis :)

Of course, I don't plan on playing Dixonary on my iPod, so we don't need
to follow /those/ conventions.

--
Dan