ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

hook line -sinker

not really on topic, but i've got a load of work to do today, including finishing writing an important document. so right now the most urgent thing is resolving the following question:

which combination of fonts and colours for title, subtitle and headers is the best lay out for a document, in this case a word document.

Colours?

Slightly surprised that you'd vary colours, but maybe I shouldn't be. You'd know best.

Is the issue here, Fizzles, about appealing to, or holding the attention of, a very particular audience?

it is partly, pinefox.

house style is a v light san serif with calibri body, which isn't compelling as a set of headers tbh, though it can work. in that vein, colours can help mark out the document as a 'house' production, however, i must admit it's partly to draw the attention to people more used to slides than reading documents that HERE IS A NEW SECTION.

the audience point - senior management in a company i work for, the seniority indicating lower-than-common cognitive function and attention span.

so i've been faffing around with fonts (obv because easier than finishing the content), and have decided i don't want the exact house style (*another* work document), and something different would be striking and help attract attention.

and after all, attractively laid out reports and analyses can be easier to digest.

no chance of getting in a consultant for it I suppose

no, i feel that right now rather than doing any more writing the most important thing is for me and me alone to sort out the fonts.

fuckit i need to set a two-hour timer and switch off all distractions. break first though, sitting here not actually doing anything to the document is quite tiring.

What happened?

comic sans, the letters dancing, each a different colour, is what i heard

If were are interviewing someone who uses the plural personal pronoun 'they', would it be correct or acceptable to still use the singular personal pronoun 'me' when reproducing their direct speech?

they is singular so yes

When did the comma go away before "Jr."?

Asking for a friend.

ap style, perhaps

No commas for Jr., III or even Inc.

AP tries to keep them out of attorney firm names too.

they don't like , inc. either, which is important to the inc.s

ap otm, these commas are fussy and needless imo

Dinosaur, Junior

even Chicago says no comma for Jr.

What happened?

The main principle I use is that the hierarchy of the information should be obvious at a glance even to someone who's not familiar with the topic. I frequently write and edit technical documents that have three and four (and sometimes even five) levels of heading.

Groceries
Produce
Fruit
Vegetables
Onions
Beverages
Beer
Wine
Bread Products
Bagels
English muffins

Some folks use outline numbering (like 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.2.2.1, etc.), which can be helpful in formal contexts. Old-school outlining designations like I.A.2.iii can be even fussier. But for some purposes and for some audiences it seems fussy. The human brain can only hold so much hierarchical information at once, and if you get down to something like "please see section III.B.5.xxiv on page 157," your eyes just glaze over.

Me, even if we are required to use a numbering scheme, I strive for page designs that instantly communicate what's the main topic, what's a subtopic, and so on. So like the first level of heading will be somewhat larger than the body copy, bold, and often have a thin horizontal rule under it. The second level will smaller than the first but still bold, with no line under it. The third level might be italicized and about the same size as the body copy.

I regularly argue for simplifying levels so that you don't get absurdities like

1.0 Groceries
1.1 Produce
1.1.1 Vegetables
1.1.1.1 Root vegetables
1.1.1.1.1 Onions
1.1.1.1.1 Red onions

i think that makes sense, Mad Puffin. The document more or less structures itself tbh, as it’s a strategy document, so it follows a fairly standard external, internal, strategy, execution and financials structure, with sub divisions for people and technology to put it in v general terms.

but none of this helps with the critical question of *which colours* and *which fonts*. unless that is flashing comic sans ofc.

Calibri is a pretty decent humanized sans serif imo. It is a good, fresh display typeface (headings, captions, etc.). I don't love reading long blocks of copy in it, but I should say that my own taste is pretty old-fashioned.

My design sensibilities date from about 1986 and are steeped in traditional newspaper and magazine production. I'd still be using Optima and Garamond and Palatino if I could get away with it.

In documents that are being shared around in an Office environment, you will not want to choose anything nonstandard that would require your coworkers to install a font.

no indeed. it has to be one of the standard word sets. no fancy hoefler designs, sadly. (tho crazily for a while our house style *was* a google open font, high meant if you hadn’t downloaded it the document wd appear v differently!)

My usual template when I'm not required to use a specific house style is probably something like:

Heading 1: Calibri 18, bold, flush left, in dark teal (RGB 0 51 102), half-point bottom border (probably black but I might get fancy and make the line also that same dark teal)

Body text: TNR 12, black, single spaced, 6 pts space after paragraph

Heading 2: Calibri 14, bold, black, flush left

Heading 3 if needed is TNR 12 bold italic, black, flush left

First-level bullet is round and black, indented 0 but with a hanging indent of .13 in (sorry not sorry, I think in inches)

Second-level is an en dash, indented .13 and hanging indent of .13

I think the result is clean and unfussy and strikes the right balance of modern and dignified, but your document may vary

excellent! thank you!

I am surprised and impressed at anyone choosing to use TNR. I have a massive typecase full of 12-pt TNR and I printed something with it once. I had to throw it away. It's a classic and I do not like to look at it.

I have customers who require it!

Colm Tóibín, LRB 27.1.2022, p.23:

I know it didn't happen only because I once asked McGahern about it - who, with some satisfaction, assured me that it was pure fiction.

If writing it, I'd probably have written:

I know it didn't happen only because I once asked McGahern about it, and with some satisfaction he assured me that it was pure fiction.

It's a classic and I do not like to look at it.

― Tim, Thursday, February 10, 2022

Great sentence.

but to refer to "it" why wouldn't you select the relative pronoun "which"? otherwise -- by the same (i think incorrect) logic -- doesn't "he" in yr rewrite would also refer to "it"?

in fact "who" -- bcz as a relative pronoun it refers to a person not a thing -- *has* to refer to mcgahern

i don't think toibin's is an especially great sentence: the dash seems, well, slapdash -- but a comma (tho correct) wd make the whole thing a moutfhul…

better might be to turn it into two sentences:

I know it didn't happen only because I once asked McGahern about it. He, with some satisfaction, assured me that it was pure fiction.

Indeed, "who" can't refer to "it", and isn't supposed to. I'm not for a moment saying that CT means it to. I just suggest that the structure of his sentence is bad because it implies this logic.

"I once asked Mark S about his piano, who told me that he had written an article about it for The Wire".

No.

"I once asked Mark S about his piano, and he told me that he had written an article about it for The Wire".

no dash, bracket everything after dash, no commas in brackets

i wouldn't read the sentence you propose and assume the piano had thoughts to be honest pinefox

like surely there's a space for general inference?

i think pf's point is that this level of fine dining the structure shdn't even be giving readers reason to giggle unkindly -- it's less that the meaning can fairly be taken wrong (it can't), and more that unfair ppl have been given a very brief beat within the structure where they can imagine themselves poking fun, and a less slack writer wouldn't give them this leeway

I don't think this is quite correct as a sentence.

It depends on how one measures correctness. Tóibín employs more than one clue to guide his reader to the interpretation he wishes them to make.

First, the referent of "it" is not a person, but an event. A "who" is a much better fit for a person, while a "which" is a much better fit for an event. This is a very distinct fingerpost pointing toward McGahern as the intended "who". Next, he separates "it" from "who" with a dash, which is an informal method of punctuation in this situation, implying a greater implied distance between them, as if he were purposely telling the reader not to connect them. Lastly, his tone is informal and conversational, so the application of strict editorial formality is inapt.

lol yeah we got this aimless

That's uncalled for, is no-one else allowed to join in this discussion?

he was just broadcasting his merriment at... something

I once asked Mark S about his piano, who had written an article about it for The Wire.

I once asked Mark S about his sister, who had written an article about it for The Wire.

What could “it” refer to in the second sentence, or am I missing the point?

Anyway, I suppose I see sentence structure as a means to the end of comprehension, rather than a set of unbreakable Latin-like rules. It being a dash rather than a comma does make a difference, I think.

x-post: it me

Alba: in the 2nd sentence it would have to refer to an object previously named.

I admit that this, possibly, makes the two sentences less directly comparable than they might otherwise seem.

Nonetheless, I think that the two sentences together may do something to demonstrate how bad the first one is.

It is very often possible to decipher the intended meaning of a sentence, even if the sentence is bad, but this doesn't mean the sentence is good, or should be allowed into print by editors.

“Decipher” implies difficulty though. I don’t think there was any difficulty.

If there was for you, then I may have to reconsider my opinion, or at least put it to a focus group.