I hate the term ‘platform’ in technology writing. The word is often used in a vague hand-waving way to refer to a piece of hardware or software, or even a combination of the two.

Like ‘thing’ the word comes in useful when the writer doesn’t want to be precise.

Platform is also used as padding to make whatever is being discussed sound more important. For example, there are people who think “the Windows platform” somehow trumps “the Windows operating system” or even plain old “Windows”.

Likewise “the Intel platform”, or any other bloody platform.

Environment too

The same can be said about ‘environment‘. To me an environment is a pond with frogs hopping around. A rain forest is an environment.

To describe an operating system as an environment is pompous, wordy and just poor communications.

I can accept Windows being described as ’software’, it’s accurate, if not precise. We can shorten operating system to OS when communicating with more tech-savvy readers.

There are people who think Apple’s tightly-knit combination of software and hardware qualifies as a platform or an environment (though frequently people who use one term will use both to mean exactly the same thing). It’s not. Software plus hardware adds up to a computer.

If you want to talk about what goes on in the world of Apple computers, say so, be precise, be accurate, call it an Apple computer.

Good writing is clear, concise and unambiguous. “Platform” and “environment” fail on all three counts.

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There’s nothing wrong with writing lists – they work well online where attention spans are shorter.

If the list items are short, you can use bullet points. Or, if the order is important, choose numbered bullets.

Both make text easy to scan and read quickly.

Another, more elegant, approach is to write a variation on the following theme:

First, something happened. Second, something else. Next, we used a little elegant variation to make things more interesting. Then, we did this. Last, we finished up.

Spell out the words from first to ninth* then write 10th, 15th, hundredth.

Some people use firstly, secondly, thirdly and so on. While strictly speaking both approaches are grammatically correct, I’d argue adding -ly is old-fashioned and unnecessarily fussy.

What’s more, you’ll end up looking silly if you want to deal with lots of items and reach eleventhly or even millionthly.

So, stick with the simpler format.

* or perhaps tenth. This depends on your taste or house style, but remember to stay consistent.

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Apart from being ugly the and/or construction is often used ambiguously. It can make your meaning unclear. This is something good writers strive to avoid.

The term is often used when the writer or speaker, means either and or or, but not both. In this case it is preferable to just use the one you mean.

If you do mean “either and or or or both” then it’s best to spell out your meaning in full, ie:

You can eat an apple or an orange, or both.

And/or crept into common use from the legal world, where it is often used as a catch-all, but is still often considered controversial as the meaning is imprecise.

The same applies to using a slash between words. It means or, so don’t be lazy and leave your readers to guess your meaning. Be precise, use the word. It’s only two letters.

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Found this at Words & Stuff (which now appears to be dead):

Hartman’s Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation states that any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one error.

Nitpickers R Us

Words formed from a series of initial letters or parts of other words are known as acronyms.

For example:

IBM, BBC, Unesco, WHO, Anzac, laser, radar

Acronyms are useful because they often make text simpler, easier to read and understand. There’s no question life would be harder if you had to write light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation every time you needed to refer to a laser.

It’s best to spell an acronym out in full the first time you use it unless you are writing for a specialist audience and the term is instantly familiar. I prefer to write the full term, followed by the acronym thus:

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).

Others like to write the acronym, followed by its full title in brackets. Both are equally correct, it’s simply a matter of editorial style.

If an acronym is confusing, don’t use it.

Some style guides allow acronyms written with full stops (or periods) between each letter or segment. I disagree.

Likewise, there are those who think acronyms should always be written in capital letters. Again I disagree. In both cases the result is both inelegant and distracting.

You’ll notice in the examples above, I’ve written some acronyms in capitals, some with an initial capital and some in lower case. My logic for this is as follows:

• When you pronounce the acronym as a string of letters, ie eye, bee, emm for IBM the computer company, write the word in capitals. Some people call this type of acronym initialism.
• If the acronym is a word and spoken as a word, then treat it as a normal word with an initial capital if it is a proper noun otherwise with a lower case initial letter.
• Some American newspapers automatically use an initial capital followed by lower case if the acronym had more than six letters.

One difficulty is deciding whether to use a or an before an acronym. The important thing is how it sounds when spoken.

Certain acronyms were deliberately designed from the outset as pronounceable words. For example, Action on Smoking and Health (Ash).

Lastly, there’s a very good piece of advice in The Economist Style Guide:

…try not to repeat the abbreviation too often; so write the agency and not the IAEA, the Union rather than the EU, to avoid splattering the page with capital letters. There is no need to give the initials of an organisation if it is not referred to again.

Related articles:

• Companies are singular
• The inverted pyramid
• Keep it simple
• And
• Go easy on the adjectives
• Capital letters

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You may have been taught at school that you shouldn’t use a preposition to end a sentence. This is a hangover from Latin and Greek – sentences in the two languages never ended with prepositions.

Years ago I worked in the public relations department of Britain’s Science and Engineering Research Council and was taken to task by my boss for ending a sentence with a preposition. He told me it was; “Something, up with which, I will not put” – a quote from Winston Churchill.*

But that was then, and this is now. The grammar police won’t agree with me, but I’d argue this is a rule you can comfortably ignore for everyday writing, business writing, journalism and all types of online communications.

In practical everyday writing there will be many cases when it simply doesn’t make sense to contort your sentences to avoid ending with a proposition. Your writing will be clearer and easier to understand.

And you’ll be in great company. Most newspaper style guides allow it, most popular authors and the overwhelming majority of modern literary authors simply sidestep the rule.

*Churchill was on my side in this. I suspect my boss didn’t realise the quote was said as a joke.

Further reading:
Better writing: Rhythm
Better writing: Companies are singular
Better writing: The inverted pyramid
Better writing: Keep it simple
Better writing: And
Better writing: Go easy on the adjectives
Better writing: Capital letters

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There’s a lot of talk and writing online about the New Zealand government’s super city plan for Auckland.

The correct style for super city is two lower case words. The term is not a name, at least not yet. It is a description. Capitals are only used for proper names, so there shouldn’t be any confusion or question over the term.

Nor is it one word. Over the past twenty years or so there’s been something of a fashion to run words together and separate the component words with a capital letter. If a company or organisation wishes to do that with its name, or the name of a product, it has every right to do so.

But there’s no grammatical or logical reason to make a single word out of super city. Would you write Auckland is a BigCity? Of course not.

Fairfax’s Stuff.co.nz web site is confused about this. At the time of writing the newspaper company’s site has an Auckland Super City page which offers every permutation: one word, two words, upper case lower case. The New Zealand Herald is just as confused as this search shows: “supercity” Search Results. In fact it adds a hitherto unseen variation: Supercity, all one word with a single capital.

For clarification and background you may like to read my previous article about capital letters.

You don’t always need to write obsessively correct English. I’ve written tips on how some grammar rules can be bent elsewhere.

However, there are serious mistakes which are best avoided if you want to appear professional and intelligent. When you commit a grammar crime in, say, a business email, report or web post, you undermine your message. In many cases your clumsy and clueless English could be around for a long time warning the world not to take you seriously.

Apostrophes are often to blame for these credibility errors. If you are not a confident writer, alarm bells should ring every time you reach for the apostrophe key.

Five apostrophe errors to watch for:

1. The greengrocers’ apostrophe gets its name because so many handwritten shop signs use apostrophes incorrectly. It’s unfair to single out greengrocers — the mistake is widespread across the entire spectrum of trades and professions.

A greengrocers’ apostrophe happens when a writer turns a word into a plural by using an apostrophe s rather than the correct plural ending.

For example: Macintoshes and PCs not Macintosh’s and PC’s.

2. It’s when you mean its.
   Its is a possessive pronoun — like his or her. It’s is a contraction of “it is” or “it has”. If this bothers you, make a point of always writing it is out in full and never writing it’s. Alternatively try speaking the sentence and checking whether replacing its with “it is” makes sense.

And while we are on the subject, there is no such word as its’.

3. Confusing your with you’re. Your is another possessive pronoun. To check think of: his computer, her computer, its computer, your computer.

You’re is a contraction of “you are”, as in “you’re reading a column on basic grammatical errors”.

4. Muddling they’re, their and there. Another common apostrophe problem comes with “they’re” which is a shortened version of “they are”. Their is the possessive plural pronoun. As in; his computer, its computer, your computer, their computer. There is a place. It is the opposite of here. Their and there are particularly easy words to confuse when typing on a keyboard.
5. When to use who’s and whose. Another case of a possessive pronoun that doesn’t have an apostrophe being confused with a verb contraction. Think of: whose computer is that? Who’s using it?

Related articles:

• Companies are singular
• The inverted pyramid
• Keep it simple
• And at the start of a sentence
• Go easy on the adjectives
• Capital letters

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