• Re: Elements of Style in English

    From Stan Brown@the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm to alt.usage.english,alt.usenet.offline-reader on Thu May 13 17:21:25 2010
    From Newsgroup: alt.usenet.offline-reader

    (followups to alt.usenet.offline-reader only)

    Thu, 13 May 2010 16:47:16 +0200 from Lars Enderin
    <lars.enderin@telia.com>:

    On 2010-05-13 10:45, Stan Brown wrote:
    Thu, 13 May 2010 08:56:59 +1000 from Peter Moylan
    <gro.nalyomp@retep>:

    Aleksej Saushev wrote:

    ... Some text in English and Russian

    It seems other people can see actual text -- all I see is a series of question marks. It may be my newsreader, which occasionally shows
    its age.

    Aleksej's post has Mime headers:

    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

    The followups respected that.
    Your reader is apparently unable to cope, since it uses 7bit us-ascii. I suggest you try Thunderbird, for example.

    I have Gravity 2.8.1. Can I change some settings so that it will be
    able to display those characters properly? I looked in View + Global
    Options but couldn't find anything that seemed relevant.
    --
    Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
    http://OakRoadSystems.com
    Shikata ga nai...
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Reinhold {Rey} Aman@aman@sonic.net to alt.usage.english,alt.usenet.offline-reader on Thu May 13 19:06:05 2010
    From Newsgroup: alt.usenet.offline-reader

    [Added back <alt.usage.english>]

    Stan Brown wrote:

    (followups to alt.usenet.offline-reader only)

    Why? This thread ("Elements of Style in English") is certainly more interesting than most of the crap in AUE nowadays, particularly all that endless fuckin' "Coline" shit and that long idiotic "Happy Birthday, Mr.
    T.C." suck-up thread started (of course) by a dizzy dame.
    --
    ~~~ Reinhold {Rey} Aman ~~~
    "El hombre es tantas veces hombre cuanto
    es el n.mero de lenguas que ha aprendido".
    -- Carlos I (Rey de Espa+a)
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Stan Brown@the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm to alt.usenet.offline-reader on Sat May 15 12:54:02 2010
    From Newsgroup: alt.usenet.offline-reader

    Reposted with a more appropriate subject line...

    Thu, 13 May 2010 17:21:25 -0400 from Stan Brown
    <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>:

    (followups to alt.usenet.offline-reader only)

    Thu, 13 May 2010 16:47:16 +0200 from Lars Enderin
    <lars.enderin@telia.com>:

    On 2010-05-13 10:45, Stan Brown wrote:
    Thu, 13 May 2010 08:56:59 +1000 from Peter Moylan
    <gro.nalyomp@retep>:

    Aleksej Saushev wrote:

    ... Some text in English and Russian

    It seems other people can see actual text -- all I see is a series of question marks. It may be my newsreader, which occasionally shows
    its age.

    Aleksej's post has Mime headers:

    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

    The followups respected that.
    Your reader is apparently unable to cope, since it uses 7bit us-ascii. I suggest you try Thunderbird, for example.

    I have Gravity 2.8.1. Can I change some settings so that it will be
    able to display those characters properly? I looked in View + Global Options but couldn't find anything that seemed relevant.
    --
    Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
    http://OakRoadSystems.com
    Shikata ga nai...
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Tom B.@nfn03862@naples.net to alt.usenet.offline-reader on Sat May 15 13:36:25 2010
    From Newsgroup: alt.usenet.offline-reader

    Stan Brown wrote in "alt.usenet.offline-reader" ...

    Reposted with a more appropriate subject line...

    Thu, 13 May 2010 17:21:25 -0400 from Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>:

    (followups to alt.usenet.offline-reader only)

    Thu, 13 May 2010 16:47:16 +0200 from Lars Enderin <lars.enderin@telia.com>:

    -trim-

    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

    The followups respected that.
    Your reader is apparently unable to cope, since it uses 7bit us-ascii. I suggest you try Thunderbird, for example.

    I have Gravity 2.8.1. Can I change some settings so that it will be
    able to display those characters properly? I looked in View + Global Options but couldn't find anything that seemed relevant.

    I doubt it. There are other things to try like "Article - Character
    Coding" or setting the script on the Body font. But I could not get
    rid of the question marks. I think it depends on the Windows
    regional settings and if your font has those chars. I tried with a
    Unicode font and could not get it.

    I can't even tell if !theBat, which handles char sets well,
    displays it correctly. One reason is I can't read KOI!
    --
    Tom B. * * * Gravity Web Pages * * *
    http://mpgravity.sourceforge.net/ (official site)
    http://gravity.tbates.org/
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Stan Brown@the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm to alt.usenet.offline-reader on Sun May 16 02:04:23 2010
    From Newsgroup: alt.usenet.offline-reader

    Sat, 15 May 2010 13:36:25 -0400 from Tom B. <nfn03862@naples.net>:

    Stan Brown wrote in "alt.usenet.offline-reader" ...
    I have Gravity 2.8.1. Can I change some settings so that it
    will be
    able to display those characters properly? I looked in View + Global Options but couldn't find anything that seemed relevant.

    I doubt it. There are other things to try like "Article - Character
    Coding" or setting the script on the Body font. But I could not get
    rid of the question marks. I think it depends on the Windows
    regional settings and if your font has those chars. I tried with a
    Unicode font and could not get it.

    I can't even tell if !theBat, which handles char sets well,
    displays it correctly. One reason is I can't read KOI!

    Thanks, Tom. I'm reaching the breaking point with Gravity, I fear.
    The business of not displaying characters correctly (and I know this
    is Gravity, because everyone else in the thread could see the
    Cyrillic characters) is just an occasional annoyance. But the many- times-a-day annoyance is breaking quoted lines, both in followups
    (see above) and in "Article + Forward via mail". I don't know if that
    was introduced in 2.8.1 or earlier, but it was not part of 2.6.
    --
    Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
    http://OakRoadSystems.com
    Shikata ga nai...
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Stan Brown@the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm to alt.usenet.offline-reader on Sun May 16 10:35:23 2010
    From Newsgroup: alt.usenet.offline-reader

    Sun, 16 May 2010 02:04:23 -0400 from Stan Brown
    <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>:

    Sat, 15 May 2010 13:36:25 -0400 from Tom B. <nfn03862@naples.net>:

    Stan Brown wrote in "alt.usenet.offline-reader" ...
    I have Gravity 2.8.1. Can I change some settings so that it
    will be
    able to display those characters properly? I looked in View + Global Options but couldn't find anything that seemed relevant.

    I doubt it. [snip]

    Thanks, Tom. I'm reaching the breaking point with Gravity, I fear.
    The business of not displaying characters correctly (and I know this
    is Gravity, because everyone else in the thread could see the
    Cyrillic characters) is just an occasional annoyance. But the many- times-a-day annoyance is breaking quoted lines, both in followups
    (see above) and in "Article + Forward via mail". I don't know if that
    was introduced in 2.8.1 or earlier, but it was not part of 2.6.

    Oh yeah -- and the spell checker that won't let me enter a corrected
    spelling, so I have to quit spell check, find the misspelled word
    (because spell check moves the cursor far away from it), fix it, and
    then restart spell checker from the beginning (because here's no
    option to start from the current point). The old spell checker
    didn't have those issues, and surely they're not that hard to fix?

    If I sound bitter, it's because I've been with Gravity a really,
    really long time, and I really want to like it. But it's feeling to
    me like a beloved uncle whose Alzheimer's has finally grown so bad
    that I have to face putting him in a home.
    --
    Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
    http://OakRoadSystems.com
    Shikata ga nai...
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Tom B.@nfn03862@naples.net to alt.usenet.offline-reader on Sun May 16 11:20:06 2010
    From Newsgroup: alt.usenet.offline-reader

    Stan Brown wrote in "alt.usenet.offline-reader" ...

    Oh yeah -- and the spell checker that won't let me enter a corrected spelling, so I have to quit spell check, find the misspelled word
    (because spell check moves the cursor far away from it), fix it, and
    then restart spell checker from the beginning (because here's no
    option to start from the current point). The old spell checker
    didn't have those issues, and surely they're not that hard to fix?

    In the newer 2.9 versions, you can enter a corrected word. The
    newer ones also use Hunspell with Open Office compatible
    dictionaries. Much nicer.

    The install for 2.9.x is different to come up to speed with Vista
    and Win 7. I.e., your data does in the USER app data so you can
    have multiple users with their own settings while the common
    executable stuff stays in Program Files. You can keep 2.8 and have
    2.9 both. I had both for a while but gave up 2.8 - it is too old.
    The editor had some minor tweaking but nothing major.

    Alzheimers - yeah some of the code goes back to 1995/96
    --
    Tom B. * * * Gravity Web Pages * * *
    http://mpgravity.sourceforge.net/ (official site)
    http://gravity.tbates.org/
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Stan Brown@the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm to alt.usenet.offline-reader on Sun May 16 14:57:43 2010
    From Newsgroup: alt.usenet.offline-reader

    Sun, 16 May 2010 11:20:06 -0400 from Tom B. <nfn03862@naples.net>:

    Stan Brown wrote in "alt.usenet.offline-reader" ...

    Oh yeah -- and the spell checker that won't let me enter a corrected spelling, so I have to quit spell check, find the misspelled word
    (because spell check moves the cursor far away from it), fix it, and
    then restart spell checker from the beginning (because here's no
    option to start from the current point). The old spell checker
    didn't have those issues, and surely they're not that hard to fix?

    In the newer 2.9 versions, you can enter a corrected word. The
    newer ones also use Hunspell with Open Office compatible
    dictionaries. Much nicer.

    The install for 2.9.x is different to come up to speed with Vista
    and Win 7. I.e., your data does in the USER app data so you can
    have multiple users with their own settings while the common
    executable stuff stays in Program Files. You can keep 2.8 and have
    2.9 both. I had both for a while but gave up 2.8 - it is too old.
    The editor had some minor tweaking but nothing major.

    Alzheimers - yeah some of the code goes back to 1995/96

    Hi, Tom. After I posted my earlier notes I figured "why not try
    2.9.15 -- 'I've got nothing to lose". So I have installed it.

    You're definitely right about the improved spell checker. I made
    some deliberate errors in this article, and it is much, much better.

    That disposes of one of my two big complaints, the other being the
    fact that when I trim quotes Gravity gratuitously breaks quoted
    lines: not only is the breaking unnecessary but it fails to put the
    quoting characters before the continuation lines. I hope that will
    be fixed soon!

    Thanks for entering the bug about Forward breaking lines. I was
    going to, but you saved me the effort. I take it the breaking with
    Follow-up is already entered?

    As for other character sets -- I would rate that as a lesser problem,
    not enough to make me switch.

    I know what you mean about always coming back to Gravity. It's not
    just inertia on my part: there's a lot to like.
    --
    Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
    http://OakRoadSystems.com
    Shikata ga nai...
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2