[HN Gopher] Australian Government Style Manual
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Australian Government Style Manual
        
       Author : kimburgess
       Score  : 102 points
       Date   : 2023-06-24 09:54 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.stylemanual.gov.au)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.stylemanual.gov.au)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | temptemptemp111 wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | based2 wrote:
       | https://commission.europa.eu/about-european-commission/depar...
       | 
       | https://commission.europa.eu/resources-partners/translation-...
        
         | based2 wrote:
         | FR
         | 
         | https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/contenu/menu/autour-de-la-loi...
         | 
         | https://www.systeme-de-design.gouv.fr/
        
       | aniijbod wrote:
       | Les Patterson Culture Manual
        
       | apricot wrote:
       | I don't know about everyone else, but I find this kind of
       | hypertext, with each section on its own page, infuriating to
       | read. When you are done reading a section, there is no simple way
       | to "turn the page" and go to the next section. You either have to
       | scroll back to the beginning or use the back button.
       | 
       | I understand that this is mostly a reference text, and few people
       | will read it cover to cover, but I still think that "show me the
       | next piece of contents" is an operation that should be supported
       | natively.
        
         | dottjt wrote:
         | I think part of the reason for this is accessibility. If you're
         | using a screen reader, then I think this approach makes sense.
        
       | funshed wrote:
       | Love it, a lot of inspiration from gov.uk in this.
        
       | andrepd wrote:
       | I prefer whatever manual produces these
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlUQMH19BkQ
        
       | schappim wrote:
       | I wonder if this will last longer than
       | https://designsystem.gov.au/
        
         | bongobingo1 wrote:
         | Associated links:
         | 
         | - code https://github.com/govau/design-system-site - sunset
         | announcement
         | https://web.archive.org/web/20210816211041/https://community...
         | - reasoning (cant say I actually understand, beyond, the
         | government is shifting focus)
         | https://web.archive.org/web/20210624054249/https://www.legis...
         | 
         | Seems it lasted from about 2017 to 2021. Shame.
        
         | kimburgess wrote:
         | It was first published in 1966, so seems probable. Thankfully
         | prose and the core structure of language is slightly less
         | volatile than the JS ecosystem.
        
         | Maxious wrote:
         | Many of folks who worked on that moved to work on
         | https://design-system.agriculture.gov.au/
         | https://github.com/steelthreads/agds-next
        
       | ape4 wrote:
       | Underlined hyperlinks are not that usual any more. But very
       | clear.
        
       | lmpdev wrote:
       | My late father was well versed in this writing style - even
       | though he never held a government role
       | 
       | Journalists and particularly paper editors (he was deputy editor
       | in chief of a famous magazine owned by the now defunct Federal
       | Publishing) in the 80s and 90s.
       | 
       | He and other editors had to adhere to it in overly government
       | focused articles (not necessarily for propaganda, moreso for
       | consistency)
       | 
       | I truly believe there were no soft power intentions behind this
       | sort of thing, it was difficult to find these particular
       | resources pre-internet so they were essential pre late-90s
        
       | barrysteve wrote:
       | Some of this stuff is good, but golly gosh some isn't.
       | 
       | Transitive verbs use the example, 'A director buys his lunch' to
       | show that the action passes to the object.
       | 
       | It makes no sense. Did the lunch buy itself?
       | 
       | The page introduces an intransitive rule to cover up all the
       | cases in English where subject-verb-noun generates sentences
       | where there the noun ending is not involved in the verb.
       | 
       | The guide overloads the meaning of the English word 'mood' to
       | carry all the intended meaning of the speaker. You are literally
       | ordered around by a 'mood' in this style guide.
       | 
       | More loveless, heartless, unrecognizable clone work from the AU
       | gov.
        
         | GordonS wrote:
         | At least as a Brit, the "lunch" example you provided makes
         | perfect sense to me?
        
           | defrost wrote:
           | They're referring to the example here:
           | 
           | https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/blog/transitive-and-
           | intransit...
           | 
           | 'buy' is the action, 'director' is the subject, 'lunch' is
           | the object.
           | 
           | <subject> <verbs> <object>
           | 
           | is the typical transitive verb template, a transitive verb
           | connects a subject and object (whereas other verbs don't
           | require an object).
        
             | cycomanic wrote:
             | I still don't see what the issue is? Is the previous poster
             | suggesting that transitive and intransitive verbs don't
             | exist?
        
         | elliottkember wrote:
         | This guide did not invent the grammatical mood.
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood
        
       | SeanLuke wrote:
       | Australia is foolishly anti-Oxford comma.
       | 
       | https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/grammar-punctuation-and-conve...
        
         | cfcfcf wrote:
         | Did you read this? It says minimize usage.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | SeanLuke wrote:
           | It says "restrict the use". And does not provide a
           | qualification.
        
             | stolen_biscuit wrote:
             | > The Oxford comma can prevent ambiguity in complex
             | sentence lists. For example, use the Oxford comma before
             | the last item if you're using a defining phrase applicable
             | only to that final item.
             | 
             | > A defining phrase is essential to the meaning of the
             | sentence. The following examples show how the Oxford comma
             | can affect meaning, using the defining phrase 'for
             | stockfeed'.
             | 
             | Seems like it provides a clear cut framework for when to
             | use it?
        
       | xdennis wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
         | mnot wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
         | SturgeonsLaw wrote:
         | It's natural to use they/them for any gender in ordinary
         | English
         | 
         | "your 2 o'clock appointment is here"
         | 
         | "sorry I'm running a bit late, can you please ask them if they
         | don't mind waiting 10 minutes"
        
       | tomohawk wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
       | tsujamin wrote:
       | I did a training course on this the other day - loved how
       | passionate the trainer (who worked on the ASM) was about the
       | correct application of quotes within quoted passages
        
         | jen729w wrote:
         | I find this an interesting choice.
         | 
         | > Double quotation marks aren't Australian Government style.
         | Use them only for quotations within quotations.
         | 
         | My partner is a(n Australian) copy writer. She's converted me
         | to the following rule:
         | 
         | - If it's a direct quote -- some human uttered the words -- it
         | goes in "double quotes".
         | 
         | - Any other thing that is quote-like, but not words that an
         | individual human actually said, goes in 'single quotes'.
        
           | cookie_monsta wrote:
           | Which is interesting because probably 99% of whatever gets
           | air-quoted should be done with one finger per hand, not two.
        
             | lotophage wrote:
             | We need a style guide for hand gestures.
        
             | SturgeonsLaw wrote:
             | It really irks me how people "misuse" quotation marks
        
           | kid64 wrote:
           | (with the exception of a quote within a quote)
        
           | JdeBP wrote:
           | Eric Partridge ("You Have a Point There") disagrees. Single
           | or double, quotation marks are inaccurate if the words are
           | not strictly quoting.
           | 
           | Before the age of widespread international computer-mediated
           | communication, authorities generally agreed on a rule of
           | starting with one and alternating to the other for quotations
           | within quotations. Many agreeing that starting with single
           | quotation marks was the U.K. rule and starting with double
           | quotation marks was the U.S. rule; with the U.K. switching to
           | double quotation marks for quotations within quotations and
           | the U.S. switching to single.
           | 
           | One U.K. authority that I have from 1985 describes U.K. use
           | of double quotation marks in primary position as "fighting a
           | rearguard action" in the U.K., with only _The Times_ sticking
           | to it. Everyone else used single quotation marks primarily,
           | back then.
           | 
           | However, the influence of CMC has put a lot of pressure on
           | the then U.K. habit. Today, after decades of Usenet, Fidonet,
           | the World Wide Web, et al., the top articles on BBC News
           | (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66007017) and _The
           | Guardian_
           | (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/24/wagner-
           | troops-...) use double quotation marks, and the pendulum has
           | very much swung the other way, with the U.K. norm of the
           | 1970s now being the rare exception.
           | 
           | However, the rule of switching for quotations within
           | quotations still holds, and headlines quite often still use
           | single quotation marks, even though article bodies will use
           | double ones for the same quotation. This latter is observably
           | the case on the BBC News and _Guardian_ sites right now, to
           | use the same examples.
        
             | bloak wrote:
             | You're absolutely right about British newspapers using
             | double quotes nowadays, but British books still use single
             | quotes, as far as I can tell.
             | 
             | An interesting question to ask, and a harder one to answer
             | is: what kind of quotation marks did people use in
             | handwriting at different points in history? I'm not totally
             | sure about this, but I think there's a long tradition of
             | people in Britain using double quotation marks in
             | hardwriting, in particular, for school. So I suspect that
             | there is a long tradition of the choice of quotation mark
             | being context-dependent. So using single marks in books but
             | double marks in newspapers isn't as strange as it might
             | seem.
        
       | Tsiklon wrote:
       | The layout looks rather like they've taken the UK's gov.uk setup
       | and done their own thing with it. Excellent!
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-06-24 23:01 UTC)