Subject: It was originally an abbreviation for the weight.
Author:
Posted on: 2010-05-21 16:07:00 UTC
According to Wikipedia, it was originally the "lb" abbreviation, with a line through it to make it more distinctive. Over time, it got simplified into the # sign. It's generally used to represent pounds only in the produce industry, these days.
I have taken the liberty of writing a tutorial for editing the wiki, including words on etiquette and style, and I'd very much appreciate it if everyone who edits or plans on editing would read through it thoroughly and let me know what you think. There are a few things I want to know:
1. Is this useful to you, personally? Did you learn something you didn't know before?
2. Do you think this will be useful to others?
3. Is there anything that needs to be included, expanded, or clarified?
And, of course, if there are any mechanical errors I've missed.
Thanks!
~Neshomeh
I needed something like this - I was going to make pages for my agents, but I wasn't quite sure how to. Thanks!
I'll third the anti-correcting based on country of origin.
I don't know if this makes sense, but when reading fanfic, I have always read with the expectation of seeing British terms in shows of British origin (including spelling), and American terms in shows of American origin (including spelling).
So, it drives me crazy when I read NCIS or Stargate (okay, it is produced in Canada, but it is based in the US), and a character says something like, "I turned on my torch, because it was dark." or "Rodney loved blue jelly from the cafeteria."
None of the American characters would ever call a flashlight a torch, or Jello jelly. To me it is a particularly annoying, jar-me-out-of-the-story OOC moment. But the opposite is true if I am reading something like Dr. Who.
If we do end up having to pick, would it be reasonable to base it on the standard established by the origin of the canon? So, even though the spelling in Harry Potter was Americanized before it was sold here, its origin is British, so the standard would be British. The standard from canon in NCIS would be American English, and so on and so forth.
I managed to thrash out a large portion of that through trial and error, but there were things I didn't know before (how to insert images, for one), and it's nice to have it all in one tidy place.
A few things, yes. First, I'll second July about the British vs American point; just to make it worse, in NZ (and Australia) we use aspects of both, so I'd rather not have people tell me I'm wrong or inconsistant when I am neither.
Also, you call this "#" the "pound" sign. As far as I know, that's called a "hash", and the pound sign looks like this "£". This may be country-specific terminology, though, in which case a mention that "#" has different names would be appreciated.
Would you agree that in any country, a semi-colon being used as a colon is just plain wrong? If so, should I make a note of it? I see it a lot, and it drives me nuts. I'm pretty sure the (British) author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves agrees with me, too.
As for the "#", I'll change it to "number sign" if that will work better. Would everyone recognize that name? Americans wouldn't recognize "hash." I don't know why we still call it the pound sign, though, come to think of it. I've never seen it used that way. When people mean weight, they use "lbs."
~Neshomeh, baffled.
That was a clue in the quick crossword in the Grauniad yesterday. I forget the clue's precise wording, but it was referring to that symbol, and the answer was four letters beginning with h. Might not be universal, but that's certainly its English name.
The # sign is "sharp" when talking about music. I have no idea why it's called a pound sign, but Sedri's £ sign seems to have more right to the name—the currency is called a "pound" after all. And, yes, improper semi-colon use is very annoying.
According to Wikipedia, it was originally the "lb" abbreviation, with a line through it to make it more distinctive. Over time, it got simplified into the # sign. It's generally used to represent pounds only in the produce industry, these days.
I usually don't think about musical notation when on the computer, though - it's not as though anything but the sharp and an attempt at the flat ("b") can actually be typed. Wish I did have a musical keyboard, though.
The number sign slants forward; sharps generally slant upward. So do flats, come to think of it. They're like an upward-slanted "b".
Slant is an odd word.
Slant. Slant slant slant.
Ha ha.
~Neshomeh, having one of those moments with words.
...but they are still close enough to be confusing. And if you think "slant" is an odd word, try "skew".
Though I'm not entirely sure why you'd want to include it in an editing guide. Regardless, they're two separate punctuation marks, regardless of visual similarities. Go ahead and note to your heart's content :)
(Also, I have that book! It's on the shelf right next to me. Heee.)
As for the "#", that makes the most sense, given that there seems to be no proper universal name for it. I always think of it as a 'grid'. "Number sign" is clear enough, especially as you have an example of the symbol right next to your first mentin - it wasn't as though I didn't know what you meant, after all.
("lbs" drives me crazy. So does "km/h" and "kph" and the like being used in written prose. Must... not... kill...!)
I only wish I had been able to refer to this back when I started editing Wikis, instead of having to look at the coding on other pages to learn how to do things. I still didn't know how to use images, or that the title of a page was supposed to be bolded in its first line of text. I will absolutely be using this tutorial in the future, possibly for other Wikis as well. Thank you so much for making this!
While we're on the subject of the Wiki, I noticed a couple of months ago that we have two Legend of Zelda pages:
http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/LegendofZelda
and
http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/TheLegendof_Zelda
I wasn't really sure how to fix this, and nobody ever responded to my comment on the discussion page. But maybe someone more in-the-know than I can take care of this now?
It took me a while to figure those things out on my own. Looks like a very handy guide.
re. capitalization, I think the important thing is just to have a standard of some sort, so it's consistent.
My only complaint is the thing against certain Capitalizations Which Had Been Standard, but that's more of my personal preference going against general grammar stuff than anything else.
I'd also say something against "correcting" when it has to do with American vs British English spelling and why we shouldn't do that in favor of either side, because I personally find it damned annoying when people do that in order for one version to be the 'preferred' one. Because then it ends with people on the talk page going "oh look I corrected how the article's name was spelled in the main page so now you have to change it to conform even though it was spelled right in the first place just not how I like it".
If you're referring to "agent" and the like, capitalizing it all the time has never been standard. Jay and Acacia didn't do it, I don't do it, and I'm pretty sure it varies depending on whose stories you look at.
I do think it would be nice to settle on British or American usage for the wiki. I don't personally care which, but choosing one would settle the question of what's "correct" there for good, and you wouldn't get a mix of both on the same page. Or, if we want to do that--say we like the American use of double quotes, but we also like the British use of non-dialogue punctuation outside the quotes--it would be good to get it down in writing, once and for all. It would eliminate the kind of problem you mentioned.
~Neshomeh
Yes, and I'm well aware it's not standard, just saying it's personal preference on my part (and thus doesn't contribute to any reason for changing it on the wiki).
I'd say that at least keeping it settled on individual pages is important- Imposter vs Impostor and all that. American English tells me that the first one is correct as well, and I wasn't pleased when someone changed the entire page so it was contrary to what the link said the page was for and then declared we had to change the link to match.
Because on one hand, TOS is American English. But on the other hand, a sizable amount of contribution to backstory, well, hS' stuff, is British English.
Additionally, I think that trying to force to stick with just one or the other the entire way through is only asking for trouble and is a bit against the whole 'spirit of the PPC' thing in the way of 'When did we start going "conform, conform to a single standard" etc', and would just rather prefer we try and keep to the same usage that was already predetermined by the page's original author and so on.
This is reaching the point of terrible rambling, but basically, it can be summed up as, "I'd feel weird if we went to British English spelling, etc for the pages on Jay, Acacia or the original series, or on any of the American writers' spinoffs and agents and I'd feel equally weird if we went to American English spelling and thingies for any of the British stuff and 'Reorganization' just isn't the same as 'Reorganisation'". If that makes sense.
Either way, it is late o clock.
Just for the record, further research reveals that both Firefox's spell-checker and my word processor's agree that "imposter" is not standard even in America, even if it is listed as an alternative spelling in the dictionary--and the "alternative" part means just that: an option, not the first choice. For my money (two cents), I think we can call that incident a big misunderstanding and put it to bed.
However, in general I will agree that correcting for country is unnecessary. Miah's argument above for articles about canon things makes sense, and I see that it can be extended to PPC things as well. I certainly don't want to see hS's "Reorganisation" spelled with a Z, whether you pronounce it zee or zed. {= P
In short, you've won me over, and I will add that note to my tutorial. {= )
~Neshomeh
Aye.
Late o clock it was though.
The PPC's multicultural as-is, both in-character and from writer to writer. If it's understandably written, I rather doubt a few English or American spellings will matter all that much.