[projectaon] Re: Tabletop Heroes
- From: Simon Osborne <outspaced@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:47:24 +0100
Timothy Pederick wrote:
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.
Sorry this took so long. I've been working on several different things recently,
including PA stuff. I might take my time, but I usually get there in the end.
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.
Weird. What PDF reader software are you using? Installed here I have both FoxIt
and Adobe Acrobat 8, and I've not seen any issues using either of those.
> 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 are currently 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!"
changing that -> than really doesn't scan well at all. To simplify: 'Many are
irritated at the lack of accessories than are available' is a horrible sentence,
and doesn't make grammatical sense to me. The whole structure of the sentence is
bad, but without rewriting the whole thing, sticking with 'that' is the best
choice, I think.
[snip]
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
Yeah, I do that quite frequently. I sit down to write a reason why not to change
something and in doing so work out why it should be changed. ;-)
> 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.
Though the Laserburn rules may have referred to close-combat rules, since close
combat rules can look a little strange if you're not already in the mindset of a
gamer--what is that 'close' doing 'orphaned' there?
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. :-)
That's the way I've fixed it. No point getting on their bad side!
(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).
I think my slight rewording of the sentence has negated any ambiguity: "they can
supply small accessories to customers’ individual requirements."
(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*
Not a chance! I want to get this thing released during my lifetime! :-p
(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
<http://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.
But since it's a made-up word that only occurs once in the entire document--and
in the entire canon of Dever's writings--I don't even see the point in
hyphenating it! ;-)
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. :-)
Won't someone think of the orphans?
(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.
The colon is lost. I have spoken, so shall it be.
Phew! Might get this released over the weekend! :-)
--
Simon Osborne
Project Aon Pedant
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