Square Brackets in American English - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 08:03:20 pm
content: This is a question for American members of the EEVBlog board, please could someone explain the rules behind use of square brackets in American English? By way of an example I quote the following post which has just appeared on Slashdot:It's no secret Apple  on a privacy bent as of late. But that extends inside of Apple as well with various internal groups fighting for access to user data and often being denied by Apple's "privacy czars" who ensure Apple doesn't collect information they don't , that information is used only  ways the user allows, and to design the systems to keep user data separate. This has lead to many conflicts, especially for the Siri and iAd team who often cannot access  user data they need. Of course, Apple can do this because unlike Google, Facebook or , Apple makes money on hardware and not on the sale of customer data.Remove those brackets and the passage makes sense, so why are they there?

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 08:08:55 pm
content: It's when somebody is editing the original text of a quote:https://www.englishclub.com/writing/punctuation-square-brackets.htm

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 08:21:01 pm
content: Yes. The words inside the square brackets were not there in the original quote, they have been inserted for clarity by someone who was editing a longer text into a shorter form. Without the inserted words the grammar would not be correct and the text would be harder to read.

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 08:21:38 pm
content: So [you're] saying that in the  passage all the text in brackets  missing?as in..........So saying that in the passage all the text in brackets missing

author: Macbeth
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 08:24:07 pm
content: Also  when quoting someone verbatim. Usually used for ridiculeI have to admit I've found most other uses of square brackets [] in news articles that are entirely redundant and just add to confusion. The hack journo  involved must be inserting his own political reasoning or beliefs in the article and it makes no sense to an ordinary person who could quite happily read the original article without any prompting.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 08:24:50 pm
content: Not precisely missing, but the original passage would have been longer with other clauses that have been removed. The words in square brackets were then put back in to maintain the overall sense of the text.When you see square brackets like that you may want to go find the original quote and see what has been lost in the editing.

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 08:34:59 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on March 22, 2016, 08:21:38 pmEither missing or worded differently.For example, if I said "I like to take my wife out to lunch", somebody might quote that as " like to take  wife out to lunch".

author: Fred27
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 08:42:02 pm
content: Quote from: Macbeth on March 22, 2016, 08:24:07 pmThat's normally used after a quoted spelling mistake. It pretty much means "their typo, not mine". Hard to tell if it's for ridicule. If you're a journalist it might be just to head off people who are going to correct you.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 09:34:38 pm
content: "Sic" is Latin for "thus", indicating that the word or phrase was in the original writing. Yes, it is usually done to show superiority over the ignorant original author, who could not spell or made a grammatical error. Since it is a foreign word, it should italicized in English: .

author: Bob F.
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 09:46:27 pm
content: WFIW, same usage in British English too.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 09:50:41 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on March 22, 2016, 08:24:50 pmYes, they seem to be used more often for shortening quotes by taking the boring bits out and replacing them with something that tries not to change the meaning, always good to see the original if you're interested. The square brackets get used less often for the OPs example of adding context/clarity to the quote by adding words which were not said but implied by the context.

author: Tom45
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 10:33:56 pm
content: Some people make numerous mistakes when talking, mistakes that slip by because the listeners mentally fill in the gaps without realizing it.But when that same thing is recorded and then transcribed for a news story, the mistakes are obvious. Hence the square brackets to turn what the speaker said into what most of the listeners present thought was said.Square brackets let the reader know that the writer/transcriber, not the original speaker, filled in those missing words.As was already stated, they can also be used to clarify based on context that isn't part of the quote.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 11:21:55 pm
content: Works the same in Australia.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 11:45:15 pm
content: As everyone has said, they're used to indicate a word or short phrase has been inserted to paraphrase/simplify/explain a longer, more complicated, or ambiguous or confusing quote.But comparing your quote with theoriginal /. submission, in this case it seems (a) the original submitter used poor/lazy/incorrect English, (b) Slashdot's editors thought they would "fix" it but are also terrible at English, and (c) the editors also wanted to clarify or add a few keywords for SEO or user-trolling purposes (e.g. they tidied up "Apple's" to "Apple ", they changed "or others" to "or Amazon", etc)

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 03:35:12 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on March 23, 2016, 02:03:27 amThat's one thing that has me concerned. In this day and age when text based communication is so high profile, the lack of educational standards in fundamental things like spelling and grammar are a worry. Clear, accurate and concise communication is important, yet the basic tools are being neglected.What's more, an author may, in fact, have something very worthwhile to share, but due to their poor language skills finds their message is lost under a cloud of ridicule.

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 04:32:02 am
content: I get dismayed by the education level of the younger generations these days (not their fault necessarily), but irritating non-the-less!However, when reading these international forums, I also look to see whether the poster uses English as a second language and subsequently give them a lot of latitude as a result.I don't have a go at anyone for poor spelling/grammar but it does irk me.Note that I am by no means perfect in this respect either!

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 04:36:40 am
content: Quote from: MarvinTheMartian on March 23, 2016, 04:32:02 amI do notice when people write "walla" instead ofvoilà, or "per say" instead ofper se, and I wish they wouldn't do that...

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 04:56:10 am
content: Quote from: IanB on March 23, 2016, 04:36:40 am"People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference." The American PresidentNeed I say moore ?

author: Nerull
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 05:09:05 am
content: To be fair, a lot of english words are morphs of words from other languages - its essentially arbitrary which you insist must be spelled in the original language.People seem to have an inherent need to imagine language as a fixed static thing where words never change, but that's not how it works. That's not how it has ever worked. If you want to speak that sort of language, the cobbled together mess that is English is not for you.Referring back to your post, Ben Franklin once wrote of how strange it was that Americans had suddenly started using 'notice' as a verb, and the British long considered it to be a strange american mutilation of the word.

author: Cubdriver
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 05:36:26 am
content: Quote from: IanB on March 23, 2016, 04:36:40 amTo shay!Those are definitely some of the ones that irk me. The scary thing is that often the people for whom English is a second language have better grammar and spelling than those who grew up speaking/writing it, and most of the time they're no worse than the worst of the 'native' speakers!-Pat

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 05:44:57 am
content: Quote from: Nerull on March 23, 2016, 05:09:05 amI agree, English 'adopts' words from lots of languages. This can make things more confusing for non-English speakers because the meanings may also have changed, and as you say, it is also a dynamic not a static system.I suppose everybody thinks that the 'version' of English they were taught is the 'true' one and measure everybody else against this 'truth'!It used to bother me that Americans had corrupted the English language but as I get older, I can appreciate the logic of many of the changes they have made (still rubs me the wrong way though)....but then, maybe I'm just an old codger who knows no better!

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 05:52:46 am
content: Quote from: Cubdriver on March 23, 2016, 05:36:26 amYes, I have found this to be true also.Some are even much better that the native English speakers - I sometimes realize a well written post was by someone from a non-English speaking country!

author: Cubdriver
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 06:08:10 am
content: Quote from: MarvinTheMartian on March 23, 2016, 05:52:46 amPerhaps because it's not their native tongue, they take more care in crafting their replies than those of us who speak/write/type it regularly and who frequently seem inclined to simply spew forth with whatever comes to mind? (I often wonder if some people ever proofread what they've typed before hitting 'post'.)-Pat

author: Dave Atom
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 06:22:20 am
content: Quote from: Bob F. on March 22, 2016, 09:46:27 pmWFIW, same usage in British English too.lol.

author: GEuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 07:49:07 am
content: (I don't actually know why but I use a lot of those)

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 08:23:58 am
content: Quote from: Cubdriver on March 23, 2016, 06:08:10 amI only did that once or twice when I first started posting - then there was the doh!moment and now I preview every time to correct silly errors or to add something I just thought of after I previewed it.Quote from: WilfredVery illuminating (and funny).

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 09:45:40 am
content: I've always considered American English as "lazy". Not saying American's are lazy but their language and spelling is very phonetic. AU/UK English can be confusing at first, but once the rules are known, it actually makes sense... most of the time. I also happen to speak Finnish and English is a hell of a lot harder ;-)Although I beg to ask, why the hell don't Americans adopt the metric system?!? It makes so much more mathematical sense.

author: elgonzo
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 10:03:13 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on March 23, 2016, 09:45:40 amAnd while we are at it, lets switch to a decimal timekeeping system. The current mish-mash of a sexagesimal and duodecimal system is bonkers. Vive la révolution!(See, i managed to use some square brackets while completely ignoring the topic of this thread.)

author: mathsquid
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 11:38:23 am
content: Quote from: elgonzo on March 23, 2016, 10:03:13 amHere are some clocks you can use. I took these pics a few years ago at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, which is the coolest museum I've ever been to. Most people on this forum would probably really enjoy it. They have lots of computing history there, including Napier's bones, pascal's mechanical computing devices, many vintage computers from the 1970s and 1980s (including the only Apple Lisa that I've ever seen), and a Cray that they won't let you sit on.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musée_des_Arts_et_Métiers

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 12:54:21 pm
content: (Background: I'm an American living in Switzerland, and studied linguistics alongside IT at university.)Quote from: MarvinTheMartian on March 23, 2016, 05:44:57 amEverylanguage borrows from other languages. For example, look at how upset the French and German speaking worlds are that English words keep infiltrating their vocabulary! What's weird about it is that is that they blame us English speakers for it, even though they're the ones voluntarily using our words! We didn't ask, never mind force, them to use them!Quote from: MarvinTheMartian on March 23, 2016, 05:44:57 amWith regards to spoken language, which drives language change vastly more than written language:The problem is that everyone assumes their dialect/accent is the one that remained true, while the others became corrupted. But in fact, any time a language divides (whether through geographical or social separation),everybranch keeps evolving away from the common ancestor. No descendant is any more "correct" than the other, because the original common ancestral form is always lost (except in artificially maintained dialects, like liturgical language). So when American English branched off (which is actually hard to pinpoint, since there were centuries of ongoing immigration from different parts of the British isles, each wave bringing a different dialect from a different point in its own evolution), it evolved away from the original British —but so did British English!In fact, among scholars of English linguistics, it's widely accepted that as of now, American English has actually retainedmorehistorical forms than British English!Another thing to bear in mind is that a lot of modern American pronunciation — such as the heavy rhotic "r" sound — is borrowed directly from Irish English, particularly Dubliner, thanks to the huge numbers of Irish immigrants in the 19th century. To this day, many Irishmen sound extremely similar to Americans. (To the point that they are often assumed to be American when outside Ireland, according to such an Irish friend of mine.)Quote from: Halcyon on March 23, 2016, 09:45:40 amBut it's not lazy. English spelling and pronunciation were both in flux when they split apart, and that flux has never stopped.But again, it's often American English that retains the historical form. For example, the British often accuse Americans of being lazy for not pronouncing differently the "a" in "can"("can") and "can't" (Am: "can", Br. "cahnt"). But in fact, British English originally used the same "a" in both, and only began distinguishing the vowel long after American English separated from it.One final thing about spoken language: One thing that bugs me, as a linguist, is that people compare their country's "best" English (like RP in England) to another country's most distinctive dialects (like hillbilly American English, or Appalachian vernacular, as linguists call it, or urban black English, African American Vernacular English to scholars). You rarely hear the English comparing their strong regional dialects to standard American. (Perhaps because there's a huge cultural asymmetry: the British openly look down on Americans, whereas Americans consider anything British to be noble and upscale.) In linguistics, it being a science, we seek to describe and study language as it is used, not to pass judgement or prescribe how it should be used. But that viewpoint is, of course, irrelevant in the real world.As for spelling, English orthography was completely unstandardized on both sides of the Atlantic until comparatively recently. Remember, the British began colonizing North America not long after William Shakespeare's death. Shakespearean spelling is no closer to modern British than it is to American, and far more different than modern British and American spellings are from each other!!A major reason why English spelling is unusually complex is that English rarely re-spells words when the pronunciation changes. English has had several major "vowel shifts" (with many regional accents emerging precisely because they didn't adopt particular shifts, or had minor ones of their own) where pronunciation changed across the board, along with many slow changes in consonant pronunciation. Any time a new word was coined (regardless of how), its spelling reflected the pronunciation of the time when it was coined, but then it remains more or less etched in stone. And that's how we end up with the same vowel having 5 different pronunciations or more! (In contrast, many languages have official standards bodies which routinely update the official spellings and grammar.)What I will absolutely grant you, and I say this as a well educated American with years of professional writing experience, is that Americans are getting far inferior language education in school. Combined with Americans' overall distrust of expertise (they confuse it with aristocracy!), and aspiration tomediocrity, it's resulted in a population that rarely uses English in a masterful way.Quote from: Halcyon on March 23, 2016, 09:45:40 amIn many areas, we have. Soda comes in 2 liter bottles (food products have been labeled in both imperial and metric for decades, and nominal package sizes have been little by little switching to metric). Photographic and movie film is measured in millimeters. The American auto industry is mostly finished switching to metric. Pharmaceuticals have been metric for ages. Science is nearly exclusively conducted in metric.Where the US has remained stubborn in everyday use is in distances (the 1970s effort to switch highway signage to metric was aborted after just a few years, though our speedometers retain both miles and km scales), temperatures (I have to say I appreciate the somewhat higher resolution of Fahrenheit, when it comes to everyday things like weather or body temperature, where having 80% more degrees in the same number of digits is handy. The 32? zero offset is maddening, though!), weights, and to a lesser extent volume.And of course, I always love to point out to people — often to resulting indignation — that there's no country in the world that is 100% metric, either! For example, small pipe fittings (like shower and hose connections) around the world are nearly universally in inches. Automobile tire ("tyre" for some) sizes are a bizarre mix of both imperial and metric (210/75R15, for example, means the tread is 210mm wide, the sidewall is 75% of 210mm, so 157.5mm, on a 15 inch rim). We're all familiar with 0.1" lead spacing on DIPs, even if that's going away little by little. And whenever we buy a printer, its resolution is nominally specified and engineered in DPI (dots per inch)*. Similarly, display and TV sizes are always advertised in inches, other than jurisdictions that have outlawed that (but the nominal "size class" is still always defined in inches, as evidenced in the model numbers.)*Indeed, one of the few devices I've ever seen with a nominally metric resolution is Wacom graphics tablets, which are clearly nominally engineered in lines per mm. For example, their current top models are advertised as 5080 lines per inch, which is precisely 2000 lines per mm. The other is some imagesetters for making offset lithography plates.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 02:28:12 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on March 23, 2016, 12:54:21 pmAn interesting thing is that in Western Australia,the word "derby" is pronounced similarly to the American way,whereas in the rest of the country it is "darby".We also pronounce Albany,with the same "al" sound as in "pal"."Easterners" saying "Orlbany" freak West Oz folks out!QuoteIn Australia,this is known as the "cultural cringe".QuoteActually in Australia,pipe fittings are all sold in metric---more or less,as 13mm pipe fittings are really perfect matches for the old 1/2" pipe.QuoteThere has been a sort of "re-Imperialisation by stealth" in Oz of late,as you can buy beer in "pints",& the hardware stores usually have a better range of "whitworth" bolts than metric ones---this latter is mainly due to the enormous output of cheap Imperial bolts from India.

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 10:07:40 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on March 23, 2016, 12:54:21 pmWow!Thanks Tooki for that very comprehensive and enlightening response.Very well thought out too, it explains a lot in a very clear fashion.I'm more enlightened as a result.Australians sound pretty much the same across the land, unlike some other countries (eg UK, USA).Except for those 'we're different from the rest of Oz' weirdos in Western Oz - eh vk6zgo?(only kidding)

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 02:13:52 am
content: Quote from: MarvinTheMartian on March 23, 2016, 10:07:40 pmAnd people from outback NSW----- who-----take-----twenty-----minutes----- to-----say----G-o-o-d-a-y--!---

author: Bob F.
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 02:17:36 pm
content: Quote from: Dave Atom on March 23, 2016, 06:22:20 amI had just seen Star Wars and was channelling Yoda at that point...(my excuse, and I'm sticking to it)

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 05:06:33 pm
content: If one were discussing some options:"Apple will do well here."Hmm... what am I talking about?"Apple  will do well here [for some application].""Apple  will do well here [in this recipe]."Now let's say we need to be more specific:"Apple [Macintosh Pro] will do well here [for this application].""Apple  will do well here [for this particular pie recipe]."Perhaps there are other computer options:"Apple [Macintosh Pro] will do well here [for this graphics application].""Apple [][] will do well here [for this retro application]."Even more specific:"Apple [][] will do well here [for this retro application].""Apple [][ +] will do well here [for this retro application]."

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 05:20:34 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on March 23, 2016, 12:54:21 pmJapanese solves this problem in an elegant way: foreign (loan words) are often written in a phonetic-only script that is roughly similar to capital letters. This makes them immediately identifiable, and easily kept out of things that are expected to be written in "pure" Japanese, which itself is a combination of the old "Yamato" language and imported court Chinese from a long time ago. Even with that it's easy to distinguish between the Chinese source and the old Japanese source.In everyday language one can get a collection of words within a single sentence that are:1. Originally Chinese and written in kanji2. Originally Japanese and written in kanji3. Originally Japanese and written in hiragana (curvy) phonetics4. Originally Japanese and written in katakana (squarish) phonetics5. Originally foreign (English, etc.) and written in hiragana (curvy) phonetics6. Originally foreign (English, etc.) and written in katakana (squarish) phonetics7. Originally foreign (English, etc.) and written in roma-ji (English letters) as phonetics8. Originally foreign (English, etc.) and written in English, etc. letters as the word itself

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 05:25:57 pm
content: On number 6, my Japanese colleague told me that that form is used for "foreign words and animal sounds".Technically, "roma-ji" are Latin-alphabet letters. Since no one would specify "English pronunciation" of vowels, the standard I learned was to pronounce vowels as in Italian (close to Latin).

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 05:52:59 pm
content: Quote from: Macbeth on March 22, 2016, 08:24:07 pmStrictly its used for a literal quote, not a verbatim one. Literal being the same letters, verbatim the same words. Thesicstands forsic erat scriptum- roughly "that's how they wrote it". It's most commonly used to indicate that what looks like an error is in fact an accurate quotation, that is, you havenoteditted the original for spelling or grammar. e.g. John wrote "He's to  tall".So although some reader's minds might infer ridicule it's not meant to imply ridicule.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 06:11:20 pm
content: When posting about the spelling or grammar of others, one should always check one's own seven times before hitting "post".Quote from: MarvinTheMartian on March 23, 2016, 04:32:02 amThat should be "none-the-less".No doubt, the second I hit "post" on this there will be the resounding "BOOM!" of me shooting myself in the foot!

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 06:38:53 pm
content: Quote from: MarvinTheMartian on March 23, 2016, 05:44:57 amWe have not, we have pillaged. To say otherwise is to suggest that an Englishman wouldadopta foreign, possibly even a French, word. Adopt! Take to his bosom and treat as his own somethingFrench!?!? He would not. He, however, might well plunder France for it's riches.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 07:01:50 pm
content: Quote from: Cerebus on March 24, 2016, 06:11:20 pmQuote from: Cerebus on March 24, 2016, 06:38:53 pmYes, this is indeed a minefield!(Actually, one might better say, "plunder France forherriches.")

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 07:14:19 pm
content: Quote from: Cerebus on March 24, 2016, 06:38:53 pm"plunder France for it's  riches" -- should be "its". "It's" is a contraction for "it is" .

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 07:22:16 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on March 24, 2016, 07:01:50 pmI think I'm fairly safe, I didn't screw up when I was writing about grammar, just when I was writing for comedic effect.Treating France as feminine seems wrong to me in two ways. Firstly one would be giving in to the strange French notion that everyday nouns have gender.Labelle France indeed! Ha! Secondly, and more seriously, I tend to think of France as masculine - they did give usChauvinismas a word after all.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 07:24:44 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on March 24, 2016, 07:14:19 pmToo slow Tim, too slow. Ian beat you by at least 10 minutes.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 08:14:53 pm
content: Ian said something different.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 08:39:38 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on March 24, 2016, 08:14:53 pmLook again. There's a little red highlight in his quote block.

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 10:32:06 pm
content: Quote from: Cerebus on March 24, 2016, 06:11:20 pmDoh!Missed that one (and I do proofread them before I post!).

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 10:36:14 pm
content: Quote from: MarvinTheMartian on March 24, 2016, 10:32:06 pmMurphy will always get you in the end.

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2016, 10:39:17 pm
content: Quote from: Cerebus on March 24, 2016, 10:36:14 pmYeah, I HATE that guy!

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2016, 01:10:22 am
content: The one that repeatedly pops up is "noone" for "no one".I always think they are talking about this bloke:-http://www.allmusic.com/artist/peter-noone-mn0000263225Of course,it is obvious where the confusion comes in-----we do say "nowhere" & "nobody",after all!

author: Macbeth
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2016, 01:43:43 am
content: Quote from: MarvinTheMartian on March 24, 2016, 10:39:17 pmI know, he is such a feckin'looser!I bet hecould[n't]care less

author: Cubdriver
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 25, 2016, 02:22:42 am
content: Quote from: Cerebus on March 24, 2016, 10:36:14 pmI find that to be the case with drawings, too - I can spend an hour looking it over on the computer screen, checking and rechecking. As soon as I print it out (especially if it's an 11 x 17), there, glaringly, is something blatantly obvious that I stared at and overlooked a dozen times staring back and taunting me. A stupid typo, a missed rev number, something. Almost without fail.-Pat

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2016, 03:51:39 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on March 25, 2016, 01:10:22 amOh thank you, thank you, thank you vk6zgo - I've been trying to work out what that acronym stood for (was it maybe a version of newbie?)Didn't even occur to me that it was no one!!!

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2016, 08:45:35 am
content: This thread isamazing!<3

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2016, 08:47:31 am
content: Quote from: Tomorokoshi on March 24, 2016, 05:20:34 pmYes!! That's something I love about Japanese, even if it's not a language I speak. (Korean is also special, in that it uses the only alphabet custom-designed for its language. Such things have been designed for English, but never caught on.)