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SubjectRe: Press release - here we go again!
Date
> >And if got lost. That should tell you something. Perhaps something like
> >" *Advanced interface support for USB, FireWire, and AGP!"
> >
> >Then place any expostulatory text indented under that as complete
sentences.
> >This treates the bulleted items as "titles". Your target audience
dispises
> >incomplete sentences and clunky grammar. (And do rest assured that folks
> >like Jerry Pournelle have posted some REAL clunkers, worse than anything
> >you did) on BIX for our chuckles.)
>
> Interesting juxtaposition, Dow. Your suggestion includes a bang
> (exclamation mark) and then you mention the most vicious bang-hater I've
> ever run into, Jerry Pournelle, in the next paragraph. Whatever will you
> do next, Oh Emoticon Person? :)

There is that consideration. I figured I'd try to be nice to the guy for
even
making the effort.

> (This is a VERY serious thing -- one sign of an amateur press release is
> The! Excessive! Use! of! the! Ballbat! Character! -- I know columnists who
> stop reading and start scanning for exclamation marks when they encounter
> the first one. Because all too many poof-piece writers place the bang in
> the headline, that means the entire release is ignored. I remember when I
> was including some C code in an article I was writing for a magazine; the
> editor said to take out all of those bangs! It took 10 minutes with a
copy
> of K&R to show him that the exclamation marks were operators, not
> emphasis. <sigh>)

Reminds me of the DoD "proof reader" who ordered us to take the
"fork()" references out of our source code on some military software we
had written for the Air Force some years ago. That "get the fork() out of
there" issue took about 6 months to resolve. The AIr Force employed
some woefully ignorant consultants on that project. <sigh>

Er, are you the Satch formerly of BIX or "are there two?"

{^_-}


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