atw: Re: '24/7' [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
- From: Peter.Martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:31:24 +1000
Howard, just before you go.... there's "open all the time" ?
Peter G Martin
Contract Technical writer
Business Change and Communication Team
Business Information and Management Solutions Group
IP Australia
P + 61 2 6283 2972 ? F + 61 2 6283 7999 ? E
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A 47 Bowes Street, Woden ACT 2606 ? PO Box 200, Woden ACT Australia
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From: Howard Silcock <howard.silcock@xxxxxxxxx>
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: 22/08/2012 01:08 PM
Subject: atw: Re: '24/7'
Sent by: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks to those who made suggestions.
As it's is meant to be a secure network, I think I'd have to avoid the
term 'always open'!
The document is very unlikely to be translated - but, at the risk of
starting up a new debate, I believe in any case that translators are paid
to translate and if they can't find out the meaning of a term that's
obvious to any native speaker, they should look for another job! (Why do
people treat translators so indulgently? No wonder we're willing to settle
for ghastly automated translations, when we expect so little of the humans
paid for the skill.)
I still like 'round-the-clock'. Terry's post sent me checking for
differences between 'round' and 'around'. Fowler's Modern English Usage
comes to the conclusion that most people decide between these words based
on what the author calls 'contextual euphony' (I think he means what
sounds better), except when it means 'approximately' - and that Americans
tend to prefer 'around'. So I can't really see any reason to change to
'around' - I'm not writing for Americans. Others' suggestions were quite
good too - 'uninterrupted' and 'continuous' (but why would you need
both?).
Howard
On 22 August 2012 11:59, Terry Dowling <Terrence.Dowling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi Howard,
I agree that it?s clumsy and forgets the leap year. I?d be inclined to use
?an around-the-clock? rather than ?round? ? but I?d prefer to say
something like ?always open[available?]? or ?24 hours a day, every day of
the year?.
Cheers,
Terry
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Howard Silcock
Sent: Wednesday, 22 August 2012 9:20 AM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: '24/7'
A document I'm currently working with refers to "a 24 hour seven days' a
week, 365 days' a year global network environment". Apart from the misuse
of apostrophes and the mixture of singular 'hour' with plural 'days', this
seems a very cumbersome expression for a very clear concept.
I need to refer to this passage in another document I'm writing, and was
tempted to simplify it to 'a 24/7 global network environment' or to 'a
round-the-clock global network environment'. But, after consulting the
Wikipedia article '24/7', I'm wondering if this would be wise. It seems
the term '24/7' has caused some confusion when used in company promotions,
especially over whether it implies availability on holidays. I don't
really want to write '24/7/365' ? that's getting cumbersome again, and the
pedant in me keeps wondering 'what about leap years?'. I like
'round-the-clock', but Wikipedia suggests it's a UK usage.
What do you think?
Howard
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