[projectaon] Re: Tabletop Heroes
- From: "Timothy Pederick" <pederick@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:37:59 +0900
I too had this sitting in my drafts for a while... but I sort of knew it was
there. Sorry to have left it so late, Simon. I wanted to hold off on
discussion until I had more editing to contribute, but that means I've
fallen behind somewhat in discussion, so I'm going to go back a ways here
and comment. I've decided not to go through with checking the rest, though;
others have gone through it already, and it looks like I've somehow managed
to lose what I had done, which is somewhat disheartening.
On 02/02/2008, Simon Osborne <outspaced@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Miniatures à la Mode, p.9
> > Tabletop Heroes is a -> [tp: 'is' should be bolded]
> You mean "italicised" or "emphasized", right? ;-)
No... It's funny really. Several times, I got the feeling that things I was
seeing in bold were actually supposed to be in italics and it was just my
PDF reader being weird. (Specifically, it was the way that section headers
had bold text but unbolded titles -- normally an italics convention,
double-italics = normal -- and how a couple of French phrases were bold
where italics was conventional.) Per others' comments (saying italics where
I see only bold), it seems this is indeed so. So please read 'italics'
instead of 'bold', where appropriate.
> accessories that are -> accessories than are
> No, the original is correct.
I just thought it read better as 'than'. The existing sentence, "...many
readers have expressed their irritation at the lack of 'smaller' accessories
that are currently available...", seems odd to me. It's meant to introduce
the idea that these accessories were formerly unavailable, but the authors
had now found a source to keep fans happy. "Lack of accessories that
arecurrently available" just seemed... wrong. Changing "currently" to
"now" was
feasible, but changing "that" to "than" was a smaller change (more likely to
be a simple scanning or typographical error) and had much the same effect.
"You're complaining because you want accessories smaller than are currently
available. Well guess what? Some smaller ones ARE currently/now available by
custom order!"
Anyway, just my two cents.
> marines; battling -> marines, or battling [tp: Different to LeRoy's.
> > Semantically, the later 'or' is one level lower, if you follow me,
> > leaving the comma-separated list without an 'or'.]
> This seems OK as it is to me.
Fair enough, but I'll just try and illustrate what I mean anyway. (I'm
pedantic like that. :-P)
Here's the sentence: "If the thought of commanding space-pirates, outlaws or
revolutionaries against squads of imperial marines; battling it out in some
beleaguered space port or on a cratered asteroid, is enough..."
The basic structure is: "If the thought of commanding X; battling Y, is
enough..." That's why I said it should be ", or battling".
What about the already-existing "or"s? They're part of the phrases reduced
to X and Y above. Thus: "...commanding (A, B or C), or battling it out in
(place D or place E), is enough..."
...Wait. I think I just figured it out. It's still wrong in the original,
but how's this for an alternative reading?
"If the thought of commanding (A, B or C), [who are] battling it out in
(place D or place E), is enough..."
Now it's the same as LeRoy's--he was probably reading it this way all along.
:-\ I feel silly now. But yeah. I'm now throwing my lot in with LeRoy's
erratum, with the slight quibble that since it took me ages to figure out,
it might be unclear to readers... :-P
> close-combat on p.12)?
> In view of the context, I'm going to leave both instances of
> "close-combat"
> unchanged, I think. The unhyphenated form does not appear in the document.
I didn't necessarily mean consistency with itself, so much as consistency
with other hyphenation decisions... and maybe with other PA publications,
for that matter -- the PAMoS Compound Modifiers section would seem to
apply.
On 02/02/2008, McSwain LeRoy <simonaamanarfan@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> hells-angel -> hell's angel
>
> this didn't look right to me either. apparently, it refers to the
> motorcycle gang and per its website, 'hells angels' is the appropriate
> spelling.
>
Duly noted. In that case I still advocate dropping the hyphen (unnecessary
for linking when the name is already in quotation marks), but withdraw my
apostrophe. :-)
On 02/02/2008, OToole L <L.OToole@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> (Tim)
> > customer's requirements -> customers' requirements
> Disagree. The word 'customer' is singular, as it specifically says
> "individual customer's requirements".
Ah, but 'individual' doesn't confer grammatical number. 'Individual
customers' is perfectly fine. It would need a singular article ('an
individual customer's requirements') to be explicitly singular; a definite
article ('the individual customers' requirements') could go either way. The
total lack of an article implies plurality (compare 'they meet the
requirements of individual customer' -- clearly wrong).
(Tim)
> > Citadel Imperial Marine -> [tp: Elsewhere, only the company name is
> bolded, not the miniature's name]
> Page 4 - Chaos Warrior. Page 6 - Orc War Engine, Dwarf Bolt Thrower. Page
> 9 - Chaos Hydra. All italics.
I remember looking through for this, I'm sure I do... I'm sure there were
examples for my side too, anyway. Style ruling needed? *ducks hail of
tomatoes*
(Tim)
> > light sabres -> lightsabres
> I hate to point it out, but if we're going to use a term from Star Wars,
> it might have to be -> lightsabers (As per starwars.com)
Since it's not a specific reference to Star Wars, and certainly not an
attempt to use a Lucasfilm trademark (if it is trademarked), using
Commonwealth spelling seems fine to me. I mainly advocated the change
because I first read 'light sabres' as being 'sabres that aren't heavy'! A
hyphen ('light-sabres') would accomplish the same goal while more clearly
not stepping on toes at Lucasfilm, if a compromise is necessary.
Page 13:
> (Tim)
> > You would -> you would [tp: Better would be to put the page break before
> the 'If', in my opinion]
> Disagree. I prefer knowing that the article extends to another page by
> having the break mid-sentence.
Understood. Perhaps putting the 'you' on the previous page can accomplish
the same goal without orphaning the 'If'? Or you could just uncapitalise the
'You' and not care about orphan words. :-)
(Tim)
> > Fig 1: Shows -> Fig 1 shows [tp: Maybe?]
> I see where you're going, but this would make it the only 'Fig N' that is
> not followed by a semi-colon.
It's also the only one not followed by a grammatically complete sentence.
:-) The other 'Fig N' references are purely references; this one is the
subject of a sentence. I just don't see losing the colon as being a big
deal, myself.
--
Tim Pederick
Other related posts:
