Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
FWIW, the CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style) recommends a.m. and p.m. which are nearly the easiest to type. I was sort of hoping they'd morphed to am pm, but nope, they still use the periods.
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You probably have a pretty even split across all (5?) different AM/PM types.
This is one rule where, realistically, the author's/publisher's "House Style" would overrule whatever major Style Guide the publisher is following.
The key thing is: Consistency within the same work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BetterRed
Some style guides (including CMOS as I recall) recommend avoidance of unnecessary precision - i.e. 'just after eleven in the morning blah-de-blah…' rather than 'at 11:09 a.m. blah-de-blah…'
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This reminds me of one of the most dumb "rules" I completely ignore:
"Fully typing out small numbers as words!"
I normalize numbers throughout, depending on context, always erring on the side of number-form.
Stuff like ages, units, percentages, etc.:
- I was three years old in 1925.
- I walked five kilometers and 30 miles.
- Ten out of 25 people says this is false.
- Almost three percent of the people polled said 50% are wrong.
- The interest rate was between one percent and 10.5% in those years.
- Between two percent and seven percent of the contestants.
vs.
- I was 3 years old in 1925.
- I walked 5 kilometers and 30 miles.
- 10 out of 25 people says this is false.
- Almost 3% of the people polled said 50% are wrong.
- The interest rate was between 1% and 10.5% in those years.
- Between 2–7% of the contestants.
It's like there's a complete aversion to digits... more than
50%fifty percent of the time!
And that last one is my favorite, because it goes from 29 characters down to
four4.
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Side Note: I forget what the "rule" is, I haven't looked at it in so long... but if I remember it correctly, it's something like:
"Spell out numbers smaller than ten."
Pure idiocrity is what it is!