Hard News: A Full Sense of Nationhood
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Stephen
Intel or PPC Mac? Sadly, it makes a difference. On Intel, it's up to v 3.0.1, on PPC it's stuck at 2.4.0 and I don't think it'll go much further.
http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#en-US
If you're on 10.3 or below, you'll need to use the X11 version. Otherwise, there's a native Aqua version.
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/There's also NeoOffice which was originally a Java-based port of OpenOffice but I think is now native code (don't quote me on that - the "neojava" in the URL makes me wonder)
http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.phpI've been running NeoOffice versions for 4 years since I switched to Mac, and I run OpenOffice on my ancillary Linux and Windows installations. I have a copy of OfficeXP around, just in case, but I haven't had to fire it up in a long time. And even then it was only at a particular customer's insistence, and I established that there was no technical issue. Oh, well.
I've had no problem moving files between the systems or saving as Word docs or reading Word docs (I lie - very occasional format issues with tables, but usually because someone got too clever with formatting in Word. But then different versions of Word do that too) apart from master documents, which are a bitch. I tend to recreate them in ODF from scratch (takes time but worth it in the end).
There's a learning curve, but it's mainly "where stuff is on the menus" and I've found the OpenOffice variants far more agreeable to user macros that the MS products. I can't think of anything I used to be able to do in Word that I can't do in OpenOffice. Not to say there isn't anything, but it's likely to be well away from the 10% of features that 90% of users actually use. YMMV.
There are other products (abiword, for one) but you asked about Open office, so...
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If you're calling me a pedant, which you seem to me to be, then by your definition, I am exactly that.
I said you are not my teacher. My teacher was a pedant. I did not call you any name. Nor did I define pedant. I merely hinted that it was annoying when you have more important matters to attend to. It's often busy work. It wastes time. People got it. OK? Class Dismissed.
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I'm not following you. If you're saying that academics don't worry about formal presentation, I'd have to disagree, but I'm not quite sure it's what you're saying.
You're right, it's not ;-)
Yes, academics do worry about formal presentation, precisely because it is formal. Ben made the claim that he's "rather the functioning of government and academia wasn't held up by such concerns, considering how slow moving they already are". My point was that the holdup is usually about the content, not the typos, although they get a seeing to as well.
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Otherwise it's the slightly idiosyncratic but otherwise v. nice Mellel.
I've heard of Mellel but never tried it. What's its appeal to you, Joe?
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Sorting out the typos is going to be the last thing you do. If that has to get skipped, because the paper just has to come out, then it gets skipped.
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Sorting out the typos is going to be the last thing you do. If that has to get skipped, because the paper just has to come out, then it gets skipped.
Really? Can't say I come across too many typos in academic journals. But the point is that the presentation is pretty much never sloppy.
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By which I mean: if I saw a reputable Italian publication that used apostrophes instead of the proper accented letters (which is the equivalent of what we're talking about here) I'd immediately conclude it's not reputable.
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I've heard of Mellel but never tried it. What's its appeal to you, Joe?
I'm not a technical writer, and as I'm no longer studying a lot of Mellel's features such as footnotes and integration with the Bookends bibliography and reference app. aren't so critical any more. That said, there isn't any internal Word feature I can think of that Mellel can't match or better. Reads Word files reasonably well, but of course won't save in that format. The proprietary file format isn't a problem when you're largely writing to please yourself.
Mainly, it's fairly cheap, and I'm a sucker for a nice interface. Nothing I've used displays a closer approximation of the final printed page than Mellel.
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Uh, my bad - Mellel does save in Word's .doc format. It's just a feature I barely ever use.
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So that's how I can find the disreputable places? Look for crude apostrophes and poor accents?
You should do the typos, definitely. But when someone has done the typos, then you find one that slipped through, without loss of meaning, do you really need to feel duty bound to point it out? When you're actually reading what this person is thinking rather than tiresomely having to hear them saying it? And you're thinking about what they're thinking and you're thinking something awesome about that, do you really want to go "No, hold on, there's something wrong with the apostrophes on that one. Damnit, this whole thing is just disreputable. A man of my standing shouldn't have to put up with that. Come back when you've learned some decent language, Sonny, and you can take your poorly typed Cure for Cancer with you. Honestly!".
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"No, hold on, there's something wrong with the apostrophes on that one. Damnit, this whole thing is just disreputable. A man of my standing shouldn't have to put up with that. Come back when you've learned some decent language, Sonny, and you can take your poorly typed Cure for Cancer with you. Honestly!".
There's a bit of that in my experience and it can be tiresome.
I'm a public servant and prepare a reasonable amount of material for Ministers etc. Our Director General's only in his early fourties, so you might expect him to be less of a grammarian/pedant but his stated view is that when you let through a couple of typos, Ministers wonder what else you've missed/omitted/misunderstood.
It's also about ease and not distracting the reader - if you're getting through 50 briefs a day, I understand if you crack it when you have to re-read something several times to work out WTF. I guess I've come around to this way of thinking though I'm more naturally inclined to your view Ben.
I certainly don't want to sound like I'm lecturing though, not least of all 'cause I'm a bit slapdash and need an editor myself and 'cause I get your substantive point.
I guess what I'm saying is formal matters require a degree of formality, though I also worked for another (very senior) Commonwealth official who'd make decisions based on SMS advice...
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@Mark
Thanks a bunch, my reading had intimated that the Mac native Open Office was 10.5/Intel only. I'm downloading the PPC Aqua as I type this. I might use it now since I was never able to get it to print from within X-11. Yipee!
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Paul, so the DG was saying the pedantry was from the very top? Man, that really is the last thing we need.
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So that's how I can find the disreputable places? Look for crude apostrophes and poor accents?
Kind of, yeah. When I mark translation tests by people who would like to enter the business, for instance, I'm pretty ruthless on that front. Because these conventions are easy to follow and actually valuable, there really is no excuse for not following them in the context of formal writing and publication. In the maelstrom of the informal I don't expect that and of course writing of great value gets produced there, but that's beside the point.
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Paul, so the DG was saying the pedantry was from the very top? Man, that really is the last thing we need.
I kinda think you're kidding, but if you're not; then no, that's not his point. His point is that when determining policy that could impact people's daily lives, it's good to be precise and clumsy spelling etc alerts Ministers to potentially sloppy thinking.
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3410,
You're just saying that a high level of formality is required in some circumstances. I don't disagree, even if I think it's totally lame. I adhere to it myself, generally, just to avoid stupid arguments with pedants. Not because I agree with them, but because it's a waste of life even talking to a pedant about the value of pedantry, since there's absolutely no way they will ever see it from your point of view.
This really is laughable, Ben. This is the second time this week that you've started a 'stupid pedantry argument' all by yourself, and in both cases in response to no actual pedantry!
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I'm not trying to make excuses for poor presentation, I'm totally coming from the other side of the equation. Of course there is onus on writers to get as close as they can to good form. But there is also onus on readers to try to understand what is being written, rather than picking on how it is written. That is like driving along criticizing everything about how everyone else drives, instead of concentrating on your own. Or even worse, backseat driving. You're actually making an accident more likely, not less. Unless you are a driving instructor, of course, in which case it is your job.
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Māori is a language with a relatively short alphabet and a whole lot of homonyms that aren't actually homophones, by virtue of one or more of their vowels being pronounced as long or short. While most of the words that have been adopted into NZ English don't have that distinction, it's there and using macrons or doubled vowels to mark the long vowels helps with learning the language, in the same way that tonal marks help English speakers begin to learn Asian languages.
And yeah, if you're distracted by errors when you're reading a document, you're less likely to take its contents seriously, however unfairly. Bad typos don't necessarily mean sloppy thinking, but they do show that perhaps not enough people have reviewed a document and considered/improved upon its core messages. A classic example is how we spot spam. Badly worded or spelled emails are a big clue that they're not actually from your bank/the estate of your long lost great great aunt etc.
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Although I think a slideshow of LOLCats in Te Reo might have something to recommend it...
How about in Russian? (With English translations).
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3410, I argue about what I'm interested in. Pedantry came up, so I'm discussing it. I'm flattered that you're keeping track of what I've been talking about and when.
Paul, I was kind of kidding. I know that Ministers can use any excuse at all to throw something out, so the various people working for them have to treat them like they're Christian Bale on the verge of another wild blowup all the time. If that involves standing absolutely still and holding your breath, or getting 6 people to proofread a discussion document, then that's how things go. Slowly, boringly, and stupidly, but that's not the flunky's fault.
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And you're thinking about what they're thinking and you're thinking something awesome about that, do you really want to go "No, hold on, there's something wrong with the apostrophes on that one. Damnit, this whole thing is just disreputable. A man of my standing shouldn't have to put up with that. Come back when you've learned some decent language, Sonny, and you can take your poorly typed Cure for Cancer with you. Honestly!".
I don't think this is really an issue.
Any decent journal, an article will have gone through the writer, at least one editor, and a couple of blind reviewers.
The correctness of the writing will occur as a side effect of the process, rather than central to it, but it will still occur.
Often for good reason. These journals are often read by international experts in the field, whose first language is not the one the journal publishes in. Unusual spellings etc could create ambiguity, which isn't what they want.
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Of course there is onus on writers to get as close as they can to good form. But there is also onus on readers to try to understand what is being written, rather than picking on how it is written.
Yeah, but no. The point at issue is whether formal writing of Maori words (I'll go with Stephen's loaner theory here) requires the use of macrons or you can get away with umlauts or nothing at all. Once a standard is set, not adhering with it is simply sloppy, and a little bit disrespectful as well. It's got nothing to do with the reader, of course the reader understands anyway, and makes the effort you're talking about even unconsciously.
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My two cents on grammatical pedantry: I try to adhere to the rules as much as possible, as long as the rules make sense for the situation I'm in. Even within PAS there are places where I'd be happy to let my writing go out largely unedited, and others where I'm very conscious of my language when commenting on complex issues. (For instance, my internal grammar Nazi is peering with a steely gaze over my shoulder right now, lest I slip up and provide further fodder for this thread...)
When people are commenting on errors in writing, it's usually quite easy with a moment's reflection to tell who is trying to understand your message and having trouble, and who is merely trying to divert attention from a real argument or get the satisfaction of pedantry. I tend to listen even to the pedants though, as occasionally they will pinpoint a mistake that might stop well-intentioned readers from making sense of what's on the page/screen.
The rule of thumb as I have heard it is that anything which causes the reader to focus on the writing rather than the message weakens the writing. This could be typos, spelling mistakes, or even bad word choice, inappropriate or changing tone, tense changes et cetera. All you can really do is read what you're writing, try to remove anything that might confuse/distract a reader from your core ideas - and be ready to suck it up when a typo gets through anyway, because life's like that. :)
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3410,
Pedantry came up, so I'm discussing it.
You introduced it to the conversation, both times, is all I'm sayin'. :)
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know that Ministers can use any excuse at all to throw something out, so the various people working for them have to treat them like they're Christian Bale on the verge of another wild blowup all the time.
Don't get me wrong, I've no time for sycophancy. None.
My concern is more about the responsibilities that attend to Ministerial Warrants. If you're responsible for legislation, regulation or have access to tax dollars to run this or that program, getting it right, doing exactly what you intend to do and not just chucking ideas up and hoping is why I we need precision and accuracy... which includes a fair whack of pendantry (in formal briefs which are only part of the process of course).
Any respect or tolerance I have for Ministers isn't personal or indulgent, it's 'cause I'm a take seriously the need to do only what your empowered to do... segue to a discussion on ultra vires anyone?
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