Shift Happens: Style guide (v3, final)
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Italicization/Capitalization
In the book body:
- Article names: Italicize, title case
- Book titles: Italicize, title case
- Software names: Don’t italicize, title case
- TV show names: Italicize, title case
- Key caps (rendered in a special font with the border): use title cap
- Magazine/publication names: don’t italicize, title cap
In footnotes (where italics are unavailable because Marcin doesn’t believe in oblique fonts!):
- Article names: Quote with double quotation marks, Title case
- Book titles: Don’t italicize, Title case
- Software names: don’t italicize, Title case
- Magazine/publication names: As above
Latin etc. words that are common parts of English should be in regular type. Italicize words or phrases that are not common in English and need more explanation.
Examples of expressions that should not be italicized:
- de facto, vice versa, quasi, via, de luxe, tour de force, lingua franca, ad nauseam, sans, en route, faux pas, rendezvous, passé, sans, non sequitur, ad hoc, en masse
Examples of expressions that should:
- letra por letra
- No tocar, si us plau
Italicize new words/concepts that appear for the first time, examples:
- Electronic keyboards had under each keycap a simple key switch whose job was to register when a key was pressed within the key itself — and only send an electric signal further down.
- Japan’s kanji characters are adopted from Chinese hànzì, but that importation took place centuries ago.
Italicize digits if the number is a “noun” rather than “adjective” (that’s not the right word… countable) — e.g. the calculator chapter.
- The typewriter was the effort of 8 people.
- vs.
A system of pinions and teeth made sure that the wheels didn’t rotate unattended, as each one could only take one of ten positions: from 0 to 9. Another mechanism made sure that carries worked perfectly — adding 9 to 5 needed to arrive at 14, rather than just 4.
Don’t italicize a.k.a. or e.g. and spell like this.
Quotations
Use […] for omissions in quotes
Call out errors in quote text as [sic]
First level of quotation: “Double smart quotes.”
Second level of quotation: “Use ⋮tricolons⋮ inside double smart quotes.” This is super strange, but by design.
Commas and full stops inside smart quotes, and so on.
Image captions
If many things, and they need a preamble:
- Early visible typewriters: (with colon) in the first line
Put a period at the end:
- If proper sentence (with a verb), or if you
- If two or more things
Dates: Prefer: Something, 1932. If necessary to highlight the date is unknown: Something, date unknown
Additions. Use these consistently:
- (simulated screen) — to highlight that the screen contents have been added in post
- (recreated digitally) — to highlight the screenshot or the printout has been done in Photoshop
- (actual size) — self explanatory
- (colorized photo)
- ; answers on the next page — for a few places where there are questions/puzles
Attribution:
- No period at the end
- Renders by XXX
- Courtesy instead of courtesy of
Words
A person “types”, but a typewriter “writes” (a typewriter cannot “type” since typing is the human act of using fingers to press keys)
Dates
Avoid (1984) in image captions, but use “, 1984”
Precise dates as “21 January 2014” (not sure if that ever happens)
Format month and date as “January 2014” not “January of 2014”
Numbers
Spell out numbers that start sentences. Rework if it’s an awkward start, like “Eighteen thirty-six”
Spell out numbers from 1–100 and others that are easily expressed in words (e.g. two hundred but 250, eighteen hundred but 1,823).
Currency: Write out currency in numerals (don’t spell out, even for single-digit numbers) and concisely. “Five million dollars” should be written $5 million. Same with, say, £10,000 or €50 billion.
Use vulgar fractions (e.g. ½) rather than .25 or .5.
Units
- 8am, 5pm, and so on — no dots, no space
- 50wpm (words per minute) — no dots, no space
- 30apm (actions per minute) — no dots, no space
Titles and names
Titles of people: follow CMOS: title is capitalized before a name, as “President George W. Bush,” but otherwise not capitalized: “George W. Bush was sworn in as president,” “The president stated…”
Names of people: Default to last name if repeating after establishing. Refer to people by their last name with the optional honorific, e.g. prof. Rempel.
A person’s initials: Use a full space in manuscript, as the typesetting algorithm will reduce inter-initial spacing (as in J. R. R. Tolkien or C. S. Lewis).
Name formatting: Junior, senior, numbers:
- John Cadwell III (no comma)
- Felicity Gates Sr. (no comma, abbreviated, capital)
Punctuation and other style
Yes to Oxford commas!
Use colon when pointing to an inline image that follows.
- After the initial adjustment, Stapenell — or one of the Aligners before him — relied on the N to test the calibration of the machine, typing and inspecting a sample that looked something like this:
[image]
Pause by [space][en dash][space]. The typesetting algorithm will reduce spaces.
Ranges use the en dash (range dash).
After colon: don’t capitalize regardless whether a proper sentence follows.
Keys held together (keyboard shortcuts) go close to each other [Ctrl][A]. Keys that are listed in sequence have spaces in between: [A] [B] [C]
Adverbs don’t take a hyphen in a phrase: “A badly designed machine”
Company names: singular nouns (“Smith-Corona ate many bananas; it got very sick.”)
Put a space after an ellipsis! So, live long… and prosper rather than live long…and prosper.
A comma or a full stop or a semicolon immediately following italicized text should also be italicized.
American states: spell out in full.
When the letter is lowercase, its plural takes an apostrophe, to prevent misreading (x’s, l’s). When the letter is capital, its plural doesn’t need the apostrophe (Ts). But make sure the s that forms the plural is roman!
Spelling and specific things
- 1970s, not 1970’s
- 5" drive rather than 5-inch drive
- aesthetically vs. esthetically
- after-market vs. aftermarket
- a.k.a. (not italicized)
- alphabetic vs. alphabetical “Use alphabetical to describe things that are in order according to the letters of the alphabet.”
- AppleWriter not Apple Writer
- ARPANET not Arpanet (will use small caps)
- banks when talking about keyboard rows
- Baudôt and not Baudot
- black-and-white vs. black and white when an adjective (and so on)
- Black people, not black people
- braille rather than Braille when talking about the concept (adjective)
- cerebral palsy (don’t capitalize)
- chiclet, not Chiclet
- coexist, not co-exist
- comptometer if a generic reference, Comptometer if the specific machine
- Displaywriter, not DisplayWriter
- emoji, not Emoji
- emoji (plural), not emojis
- Fitts’s Law, and generally this way to construct a possessive out of a name ending with “s”
- floor, not storey
- Hall effect
- Hall-effect switch
- harken vs. hark (or hearken)
- inputted vs. input
- (the) internet rather than Internet
- inverted T not inverse T (for arrow key layout)
- Keyboardio, not keyboard.io
- keycap, not key cap
- keylogging, not key logging
- key presses, not keypresses
- key punch, not keypunch
- keystrokes vs. key strokes
- key switch, not keyswitch
- Key Tronic and not KeyTronic
- L.C. Smith rather than LC Smith
- µTRON not Microtron
- mass-produced, not mass produced
- Ming Kwai, not MingKwai
- monospace not monospaced
- “the mother of all demos” (don’t capitalize, quotation)
- motor memory rather than muscle memory (after and before talking about — it)
- multi-shift (don’t make Shift a key style)
- №: use rather than No., and no space between that and a number (e.g. №2)
- passersby, not passers-by
- predefined, not pre-defined
- punch cards not punched cards (and always as two words, not punchcard)
- QWERTY not Qwerty (will use small caps)
- recreate vs re-create
- retype vs. re-type
- sci-fi — do not italicize
- Smith-Corona rather than Smith Corona
- Smith Premier, though
- spacebar, not space bar
- space-cadet keyboard rather than Space Cadet keyboard
- Speak & Spell
- Stockholm syndrome
- thumb shift, not thumb [Shift]
- touch bar, to refer to Apple’s thing (not capitalized)
- TRON for the keyboard/system, Tron for the movie
- twentieth century, rather than “20th” and so on.
- type in is okay, but often type is enough
- typebar and not type bar
- U.K.
- UNIVAC not Univac (will use small caps)
- U.S. rather than US
- USA — avoid
- VariTyper not Vari-Typer or Varityper
- videogame and not video game
- vs. is okay when surrounded by two nouns. versus is okay in other cases
- website not site
- Western rather than western
- wi-fi in the generic style
- world fairs rather than world’s fairs or World’s Fairs when talking about a generic concept
- The World Wide Web, but web
- World War I / WWI — use either depending on context
- World War II / WWII — see above
- ZX80, not ZX-80
- ZX81, not ZX-81
- ZX Spectrum
