One friend from Thailand tells me that in many Asian languages plurals are not used in the way they are in English. A different logic applies. My car has four wheel -- of course it is plural because there are four! The same idea applies to present and past tense (and probably future). I eat lunch today I eat lunch yesterday --- of course it is past tense, it was yesterday! _____________ Bob Trussler Howard.Silcock@df at.gov.au Sent by: To austechwriter-bou austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx nce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx cc Subject 30/08/2007 02:48 atw: Re: Web Text Line Length PM and Par Length [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Protective Mark Please respond to austechwriter@fre elists.org > Oh, plurals can also be an issue too. So what are you supposed to do about that? "My car has four wheel"? Or "my car has one wheel here and one wheel here and one wheel here and one wheel here"? (Oh no, too long - make that four separate sentences.) If your readers can't cope with English plurals, how can they cope with verb tenses, participles and possessives? Do you also keep everything to the present tense? I'm used to being told to write for an audience with minimal technical understanding, but my mind boggles at the idea of writing for someone who's freaked by the idea that things can occur more than one at a time!! Howard Howard Silcock Technical Writer Zare Pty Ltd Ph 02 6261 2073 Fax 02 6112 2073 Important Notice: If you have received this email by mistake, please advise the sender and delete the message and attachments immediately. This email, including attachments, may contain confidential, sensitive, legally privileged and/or copyright information. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. DIAC respects your privacy and has obligations under the Privacy Act 1988. The official departmental privacy policy can be viewed on the department's website at www.immi.gov.au See: http://www.immi.gov.au/functional/privacy.htm ************************************************** To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field. To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe" in the Subject field. To search the austechwriter archives, go to www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter To contact the list administrator, send a message to austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx **************************************************