Académique Documents
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On Style: J to Y
(taken from PDI Stylebook by Yambot and Hidalgo)
JARGON (1) specialist language; (2) writing full of unfamiliar words or phrases
LAST should not be used synonymously with LATEST. Use LATEST UPDATE, not
last update.
LAST is also not used in the story. Don’t say LAST MONDAY but MONDAY is
enough.
LATE (in the sense of dead) is to be used only to refer to a person who just
died recently; No need to say LATE PRESIDENT MARCOS because he has been
dead quite a long time ago.
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Other notes: lie (present,) lay (past) and lain (past participle)
Lie
Present tense: I lie down on my bed to rest my weary bones.
Past tense: Yesterday, I lay there thinking about what I had to do during the day.
Past participle: But I remembered that I had lain there all morning one day last week.
Lay
Present tense: As I walk past, I lay the tools on the workbench.
Past tense: As I walked past, I laid the tools on the workbench. And: I laid an egg in class
when I tried to tell that joke.
Past participle: . . . I had laid the tools on the workbench.
From: http://web.ku.edu/~edit/lie.html
MULTI in general doesn’t have hyphen when combined with another word
ON is not used for time. Don’t say on Monday unless it can make the sentence
confusing.
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PERCENT is originally spelled per cent but PDI style uses it as one word.
QUOTATION is a noun
QUOTE is a verb
WRACK means ruin or destruction (n) ; as a verb, it means the same with rack
but RACK is preferred.
REARED Only human beings may be reared. Any living thing, including humans,
may be RAISED.
SHALL is used in the first person and WILL in the second and third, to mean
plain future
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WILL is used in the first person and SHALL in the second and third, to mean
volition, permission or obligation.
SIC is Latin for so; This word is used in bracket or parenthesis after a word that
seems odd or is wrongly spelled, to show that it is being quoted exactly as it
was given. The statue (sic) is in the statue books.
WHICH is used to introduce a clause, which, when deleted, the sentence would
still be complete.
TRIGGER must not be overused; Use cause, produce, signal, start, or begin
instead.
TROOPS means several groups but may e used simply to indicate a large
number
V. is used in court