Vote for cromulency!

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1768304]

The first after I saw the usage "an FAQ" and realised that while I pronounce it "Fack" in my head other people pronounce it "Eff Ae Queue". The second because the correct usage of smileys within brackets has long plagued my mind.

Comments

[sigmonster.livejournal.com]

"I think you're wrong (but I would say that :-)."

[andrewducker]

Mismatched brackets make my brain hurt :-p

m-dash?

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

I'd probably stick an m-dash in there.

Re: m-dash?

[tysolna]

*sings* mmm-dash badooba dop da mmm-dash...

;)

[zz]

it's not mismatched, it's overloaded. :>

[steer.livejournal.com]

It might be a matched bracket for the "I have no mouth but I must scream" smiley.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

or do you mean
"Mismatched brackets make my brain hurt q:-p" ?

[drplokta]

There is no correct usage of smileys, with or without brackets.

If you must, you should remember that we're in the age of Unicode rather than ASCII, and use: "I think you're wrong (but I would say that ☺)."

[usmu.livejournal.com]

A lot of software automatically translates :) into its equivalent pictogram, but it's not a given. :-) often isn't even recognized, nor are other variants. I do think the extra space makes for better readability either way, which makes it preferable in the case you'd like to use a smiley. I'm also a traditionalist preferring :) to :-). The last one looks odd. I mean, nobody has such a big nose. :p

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

... and I have NEVER heard it pronounced "fack". I mean that, never in my life. So it is, to me, 'an' FAQ.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

I can't think of ever hearing anyone say Fack either but during presentations definitely have referred to it myself as F.A.Q. I'd say aim to your readers - in our work context I'd think if you said fack people would look at you blankly.

[andrewducker]

I don't think I've ever heard it pronounced out loud either way.

And if I was talking to business people I'd say "Frequently Asked Questions".

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Odd, I've only ever heard it pronounced "fack". That's how I was introduced to it, how I read it and how most folks I know (on the admittedly infrequent occasions that it's said out loud) pronounce it.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Agreed, it's definitely fack here.

[soon_lee]

I use "a FAQ" despite not pronouncing it "Fack". I'm doing it wrong & I don't care.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

I have heard it pronounced "Fack", but only infrequently. Most people pronounce it, and in my head it is clearly an "Eff Ay Queue".

A FAQ vs An FAQ

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Use whichever you pronounce it as.

I suppose that if I wuz to be as pedantic as possible, I'd say "a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)," and then I'd go "a FAQ"

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Square brackets [any idiot knows that :-)].

[andrewducker]

Perfect! Thank you!

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

yeah I've used that

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I sometimes use (-: at the end of brackets, but yours may be better. (Or :-])

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Expand the acronym, then think about the grammar.

(Unless dealing with some smug GNU bollix and a recursive acronym)

People who speak of 'PIN numbers' are really quite tedious therefore.

[andrewducker]

But acronyms aren't pronounced the same way as their expansion, and the "a/an" choice is based on pronunciation.

[recycled-sales.livejournal.com]

(I usually swop the bracket in the smiley for a D, hence :-D)

[andrewducker]

I actually tend to use :-> - but that's trickier on my phone, where the brackets are on the main keyboard, and the > is on the symbol board.

[cybik.livejournal.com]

And :> is a smirk rather than a smile!

[andrewducker]

It's an evil grin :->

[cybik.livejournal.com]

Well, okay. But it's not the same meaning as :) anyway!

[zz]

to me it's a grin as opposed to a smile. an evil grin would be >:).

[andrewducker]

That's clearly a smiling king.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

More correct: (but I would say that :) )

Most correct: (but I would say that.)

[cybik.livejournal.com]

Surely: (but I would say that).

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The misplacement of punctuation outside of quotation marks and parenthesis is one of the abominations of the rules. Like "'it's' is not possessive" and "not delimiting the members of your comma-delimited list with commas is legal".

[cybik.livejournal.com]

I was taught that if it's a full sentence then the full stop goes on the inside of the brackets, but otherwise it's outside. I am British and it may be different in other places. Having just checked a book nearby (by Antonia Fraser and published by Phoenix Press, if it matters) I think that's pretty standard here.

[andrewducker]

Yes. If the sentence starts inside the parenthesis then it finishes there. If it starts outside of it, it stops outside of it.

[cybik.livejournal.com]

That Guardian's style guide agrees, as does Wikipedia's.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I quite agree (vociferously in fact). (Indeed I was about to say the same.)

Furthermore for your smiley problem I would go the way of reorganising my sentence not to use parentheses, or to use them in a way that didn't mess with the smiley - perhaps with use of a dash instead:

I think you're wrong - but I would say that :-)

Which then of course leaves you with the problem of whether to include a full stop... Frankly, the best course of action seems to me to be avoiding smileys altogether in any but the most informal of situations.

[andrewducker]

Fortunately for me, the vast majority of my writing occurs in the most informal of situations :->

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

That's a rule that makes sense, actually.

I've simply always seen it explained as being the same as for quotation marks: "The period goes outside the quotation marks, and that is stupid".

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

I say either is correct. I like to pronounce FAQ as "fah-q"

[andrewducker]

Sounds like a London accent :->

[cinema-babe.livejournal.com]

According to my editor (with whome I've had this conversation, since it is referred to as an "Eff-Ay-Cue" the proper article is "an".

She's very good so I trust her.

[crm.livejournal.com]

there is no correct way to put emoticons in a parenthetical statement,

[anef.livejournal.com]

*some* FAQs, surely? I suppose if there was only one question...

[andrewducker]

The FAQ is the list of Frequently Asked Questions. I always bumped into it as "Read the FAQ", back when I was seeing it on usenet in the early 90s.