Excellent! I am ready for the wedding! (Seriously, this sounds fancy and HUGE -- the reception is at the convention center. Yowza!)
if an abbreviation isn't used 5 or more times, we spell out the term
Ooh, I am very interested in this as a rule of thumb, but hadn't thought about it that explicitly. The number of acronyms and initialisms we use makes me CRAZY.
That's the reason we do it -- there can be so many abbreviations in medical stuff that we had to set a rule for when they can be used (i.e., only if it's 5 or more times), because otherwise the articles turn into alphabet soup.
Burrell, how soon can you get it checked? I ask as someone for whom mole removal gets classified as medically necessary due to family history. There are tons of other weird skin things it could be, and I hope that this is one of them. But I hope you get peace of mind quickly.
Is it only legal documents where they use defined terms?
The relevant facts and particulars are set forth in the affidavit (the “Lender Affidavit”) of ___________________, the ____________ of Puppy Group Companies Inc. (“Puppy”), and the Motion by Puppy for an Order: (i) dismissing this case, or (ii) alternatively, granting relief from the automatic stay, and (iii) granting related relief (the “Motion”), filed simultaneously herewith and as otherwise set forth herein.
They're very handy.
Man, you can tell it's going to be a long day when I'm already typing notes to authors like "This is not our journal's style you special fucking snowflake, and if you read our author guidelines or even one article in the journal you would know that you ridiculous demandy jerk!"
Steph, I get authors like that constantly. People who have clearly never read an issue of the journal they're submitting to, and have also clearly not read any of the instructions. People who mark every single instance of the thing they want changed. People who insist on changes I've already said a polite and professional "no" to.
Now I'm dealing with an author who sent back an Approval to Publish, and a day later popped up with, "my coauthor has changes to make too! Here!" Uh, okay, those are small changes. And then, "we must revise this figure! the coordinates are wrong!" Oh, fine, that's important, I'll change it. And THEN, "we forgot to include acknowledgment of financial support! We MUST do that or lose our funding! You MUST make this change also!" Oh, frigg, man, you've had this paper in process for TWO YEARS and you didn't notice any of this stuff until AFTER you signed off on publication? What the hell? How about finishing writing the paper before you submit it? How about READING the paper before you submit it? And then get mad at ME for saying NO MORE CHANGES, way past deadline. Ass.
It was a full moon last Thursday. (In the public library world, we note these; they seem to correspond with higher than usual levels of crazy.)
In emergency rooms and hospitals, too, I've heard. When I worked (briefly) in crisis support, my co-workers insisted that full moons were always worse. Scientists say it's confirmation bias, but if enough people say a thing is happening, I tend to think there's something to it.
WHY MUST YOUR HOUSE STYLE BE SO FIDDLY AND HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REMEMBER IT
It's fiddly because we have to cover every single possible instance of a thing! And also because my nutcase boss wrote it! And you're not supposed to remember it, that's my job! WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER.
However, I think our style is not as fiddly as Steph's.
We've revised the style manual twice since I started there. The original one was based on Chicago, then revised heavily by a nitpicky Hellbeast of a managing editor based on what she thought looked good. After she left and we were done partying and drinking to erase her memory, we revised it back to Chicago-based. Then after many tussles over style that didn't make so much sense in an engineering context (The Great Hyphen Debate) we revised it again. By now, every journal has its own quirks, and some parts of style are tweakable and some are not. My boss is trying very hard to reign in all this mad individuality, and the editors are trying hard to make our jobs easier.
like, if an abbreviation isn't used 5 or more times, we spell out the term
Madness! We spell it out on first occurance with the abbreviation in parens and then use the abbreviation after that. Much easier. The articles do tend to turn into alphabet soup, but engineers seem to like that. Efficiency, maybe.
That's a great cocktail dress, Steph!
Oh, frigg, man, you've had this paper in process for TWO YEARS and you didn't notice any of this stuff until AFTER you signed off on publication? What the hell? How about finishing writing the paper before you submit it? How about READING the paper before you submit it? And then get mad at ME for saying NO MORE CHANGES, way past deadline. Ass.
Seriously, these people give me rage blackouts. You returned it. You were the one who signed off on it and said everything was okay! Then you flip your shit because you forgot several really important things?!? These are the authors who I truly think don't even read over their galleys.
I expect authors to find stuff, even important stuff -- but that means finding it WHILE they're actually reviewing their galley the way they're supposed to. At my old job, literally every issue we had the problem where authors would sign off on galleys as okay, we would put the articles up on the website, and then they would see them online and lose their fucking minds because they found errors. They would try to write retractions that referred to "typos" and "editing errors," but you'd better believe THAT shit didn't stand.
Steph, that is perfect for cocktail attire! You will look smashing, and it sounds like you'll have a great time!
Man, I have been adulting today like WHOA.
Mom helped us out with the gas so we won't have to wash our bods out of a crockpot for a month, but we're still carrying a balance. But YAY THANK YOU MOM. So I don't have to sell my car quite yet. Maybe.
And it's a gorgeous day out today, and I have the windows open and am editing.
Back to work, yo.
I don't want to be an adult today. I just want to lie on the floor and make groaning noises like Gary Busey in the Amazon Fire Stick commercial.
So, did you all hear about the awful fraternity at University of Oklahoma and the racist chanting? The national fraternity has cut ties but the university president just stepped it up:
Boren said SAE residents would have to remove their possessions and vacate the house "by midnight tomorrow."
At today’s news conference, Boren added that he doesn't plan on helping the displaced residents find housing.
"That's not our responsibility," he said. "We don't provide student services to bigots."
So that thing where if someone interrupts you it takes you 25 minutes to get back to whatever you were doing is really biting my butt today. Not to mention I am annoyed at my co-worker whining "when you make changes that affect our reports will you notify us?" when I have EVERY SINGLE TIME she just didn't do what I told her to back in January. ARGH.
