atw: Re: US/Aus English

It's the planes that are in the 'air momentarily' that get me worried.
Americans use abbreviations in quite formal documents - isn't, doesn't etc. I hope we don't!!
Jill
----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Bloxsom" <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 5:32 PM
Subject: atw: Re: US/Aus English


I've done both; Bede and others are right. Spelling is only a bit of
it, and easy enough to cope with using a US spellcheck. Some usage
differences are obvious, some more subtle. For example, the
expression "I'm in two minds about that" sounds odd to American
ears, but is usual in Australia and the UK; most Americans say "I'm
of two minds". Another example: Americans use "momentarily" to mean
"in a moment" whereas we use the word to mean "for a moment". The
American man who remarked to his Australian girlfriend, "I'll be
back to make love to you momentarily" might well be misunderstood.
;-)

There are differences in punctuation practice. One notable example
is that American style usually takes the so-called aesthetic
placement of quotation marks to an extreme (as it seems to us).
Americans are taught that closing periods or commas must always go
_inside_ the closing quotation mark. So, they write: He said he
considered it "ludicrous." Clearly that's illogical, since the
period belongs to the whole sentence and not just the quoted word.
Americans usage does jib at the illogicality when the outer sentence
ends with a question mark, say, or exclamation mark; then they close
the quotation marks first, as do we. Australian and UK practice is a
more subtle mix of the aesthetic and the logical: as a rule we put
the closing comma, period or whatever inside the quotation mark in
dialogue, but when quoting individual words or phrases we often
prefer the logical placement.

------------------------------------------
Peter Bloxsom
http://www.netpublish.net
peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
----- Original Message -----
From: "SUNTER Bede" <Bede_SUNTER@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 11:19 AM
Subject: atw: Re: US/Aus English


It's tempting to do so, but don't forget there's more to US
English than 
spelling -- there's also idiom.

For example, in Aus English we would say "the office is open
Monday to 
Friday". The US English idiom is "... Monday through Friday".

In answer to your particular question though, I would write in US
English using the 'Check spelling as I type' function to catch my
lapses 
into Aus English spelling.

-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Naomi
Kramer 
Sent: Monday, 24 October 2005 10:58 AM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: US/Aus English

Curiousity question...

If you're writing a manual which must be in US English, do you
specifically use US spellings, or do you just write the manual,
then use 

spellcheck to convert?

- Naomi


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