grammar

hyphens

coluanai — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:27:09 +0000

Too many hyphens make text look cluttered, so avoid them where you can, but they are often necessary to avoid ambiguity. See ndash.

Compound adjectives

Use a hyphen to join the parts of compound adjectives, for example:

Green-belt land, zero-gravity environment, state-of-the-art phones, well-behaved patients, ill-considered attack, better-trained staff, a little-known city.

absolute zero

coluanai — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:40:58 +0000

Not "the absolute zero".

-273.15 °C or 0 K.

The apparatus was cooled to near absolute zero to ensure that the electronics were in a superconducting state

collective nouns

coluanai — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:17:54 +0000

Do they take a singular or plural verb? It depends on the sense, but use singular where possible.

brackets ( ) [ ]

coluanai — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:55:47 +0000

Follow OD's advice on brackets, copied here below:

There are two main types of brackets.

Round brackets

Round brackets (also called parentheses) are mainly used to separate off information that isn’t essential to the meaning of the rest of the sentence. If you removed the bracketed material the sentence would still make perfectly good sense. For example:

Mount Everest (8848 metres) is the highest mountain in the world.

contractions

coluanai — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:22:31 +0000

Contractions such as “there’s” “they’re”, “didn’t”, “he’ll” and “she’d” do not automatically make a story more accessible. Contractions can appear annoyingly chatty, and can be imprecise too (“it’s” can stand for “it is” or “it has”) and so detract from clarity. If anything, contractions make a story harder to understand, especially if there are several of them in the same sentence.

his or her

coluanai — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:42:56 +0000

Avoid "his or her" in web texts (it's OK in legal/administrative texts, for example). "Their" is acceptable in informal contexts and quotes if the gender is unclear or ambiguous, but should not be used in formal texts.

which or that?

coluanai — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:45:58 +0000

This is quite easy, really: "that" defines, "which" gives extra information (often in a clause enclosed by commas):

This is the house that Jack built; but this house, which John built, is falling down.
The Guardian, which I read every day, is the paper that I admire above all others.
I am very proud of the sunflowers that I grew from seed (some of the sunflowers);
I am very proud of the sunflowers, which I grew from seed (all the sunflowers).

beam line

coluanai — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:27:13 +0000

Two words, except in the title of CERN's competition for high-school students, Beamline for Schools (BL4S) – capital "B" and capital "S".

ed or -t?

coluanai — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:11:30 +0000

Use the -ed rather than -t endings for words such as learned, dreamed, spelled, smelled

French

coluanai — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:52:58 +0000

For guidelines on writing in French – for CERN websites and print documents alike – refer to the translation department's "Guide de Typographie".

fewer or less?

coluanai — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:09:04 +0000

For things you can count off one by one, use fewer; for quantities you can only measure, not count, use less.

There were fewer cars on the roads in the 50s.

Fewer people attended the gig than were expected.

John ate fewer apples than Jane.

I drink less water than you.

There is less sugar in the scones than in the doughnuts.

half-life

coluanai — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:23:49 +0000

Note the hyphen. Plural: half-lives.

may or might?

coluanai — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:36:38 +0000

The subtle distinctions between these (and between other so-called modal verbs) are gradually disappearing, but they still matter to many readers and can be useful.

double-check

coluanai — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 10:53:08 +0000

use hyphen

meet, met

coluanai — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:45:56 +0000

Do not add the word "with" after meet or met. Write:

I met John the other day and tomorrow I will meet his wife.

Not:

I met with John the other day and tomorrow I will meet with his wife.