atw: Re: Microsoft Manual of Style
- From: Robert Levy <robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2012 21:17:55 +1100
Microsoft puts out a style guide so that they stay consistent at Microsoft.
They do their research and try to figure out what will be best understood by
their audience (and what makes them look good, of course).
They're not saying that other people should do what they do.
Having said that, they do have a reasonably large audience (cough), and when
they start calling it mice, it's not unreasonable to think that lots of people
already are, and soon will be, calling it mice.
So, I think they do have a track on what's happening in English, and they may
actually affect English worldwide. It doesn't matter whether there's confusion
between the biological mouse, because language doesn't worry about silly things
like logic.
rwl
On 09/02/2012, at 8:57 PM, Ken Randall wrote:
> Just because the original (biological) mouse has an irregular plural does not
> mean that an object named after it must have the same plural. The word
> "mouse"
> is applied to the piece of computer equipment as a metaphor. There is no
> suggestion that it is literally the same as a biological mouse. Given that
> they are
> understood as being completely different, having different plurals prevents
> ambiguity
> e.g. between "there are mouses next to my PC" and "there are mice next to my
> PC".
> The use of English is outside Microsoft's area of expertise.
>
>
> --- On Thu, 9/2/12, Howard Silcock <howard.silcock@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> From: Howard Silcock <howard.silcock@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: atw: Microsoft Manual of Style
> To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Received: Thursday, 9 February, 2012, 10:39 AM
>
> To anyone still reading this list ...
>
> Some of you may know that the most recent version of the Microsoft® Manual of
> Style was recently published. I bought myself a Kindle version for $9.99.
> Some people would probably have nothing to do with a Microsoft publication,
> but I've always found their advice very sensible and they've made a serious
> attempt to standardise terminology relating to user interfaces, which was
> badly needed.
>
> I was interested to read what they said about mouse terminology. We had a
> protracted discussion about the plural of 'mouse' on this list some years
> ago, in which I railed against the word 'mouses'. Microsoft always advocated
> using 'mouse devices', which I thought was a bit silly, but still better than
> 'mouses'. Well, now they appear to have shifted a little bit, as the new
> Manual of Style says 'use mouse devices if you can. Otherwise, use mice.'
>
> As they say, a small step for Man. Or Mouse?
>
> Howard
>
Other related posts:
