Parsimony

  • BBC, Backlash against ID card scheme 2003 January 14 (eleventh hour opposition to plans by the UK government to introduce compulsory ID cards will give the Home Office food for thought)
  • Alfred Hermina, Tech buzzwords fill the air BBC, 2002 January 14 (big technology events like the Consumer Electronics Show, which has just wrapped up in Las Vegas, are full of jargon)

    Probity

  • Waliur Rahman, Web without wires reaches out, BBC, 2003 January 15 (wireless links are taking the net to rural areas of Bangladesh, with a university in the north of the country coming online)

    Enclosures

  • W3C, CSS2 syntax and basic data types ("the macros in curly braces" instead og "braces")
  • The use of parentheses and other grouping symbols (as in algebra)
  • How are the different brackets ... used? (includes square brackets (properly "brackets"), curly braces (properly just "braces"), and parentheses)

    Apostrophes

  • Apostrophe 2, The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, 1993
  • 'Postrophe's Rule! (an ongoing collection)
  • dmoz
  • John Richards, The Apostrophe Protection Society   (also, Eric Shackle, Boston's Apostrophe Man,   Stephen Notley, Bob's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots!)
  • Matthew Engel, I demand an end to the apostrophe, The Guardian, 2000 June 6 (then the maligned greengrocer will be as literate as you and I)

    Other

  • Richard Norton-Taylor, In the coils of an acronym, The Guardian, 2006 April 10 (the civil servant's love affair with acronyms and abbreviations has to do with writing all those briefs in a language which only those in the know fully understand)
  • On Language (William Safire: gifts o' gab)
  • Christina Wodtke, Mind your phraseology! Using controlled vocabularies to improve findability (on ambiguity)
  • Dean Allen, The Destination Matters More Than the Journey (an excellent tutorial on typography)
  • Joe Gillespie, Alien Typography (an excellent disussion of typography for the display screen)
  • Seth Weinstein, Pedantry (a profesional pedant)
  • Graeme Philipson, Byte sizes: making a meal of the language, The Age, 2003 March 11 (size matters, particularly when making the confusing distinction between binary and decimal prefixes)
  • Hi-tech babble baffles many, BBC, 2003 July 8 (most people are flummoxed by the jargon surrounding new technology)
  • David Marsh, Keeping our house style in order, The Guardian, 2003 October 25 (the Guardian style guide turns 75 next month, but it remains as alert as ever)
  • Mary Branscombe, The write agenda, The Guardian, 2003 October 30 (for quote on audience; will Microsoft's new OneNote software give Tablet a boost?)
  • Nigel Williams, Death to the otiose comma, The Observer, 2003 November 9 (proper punctuation is paramount in Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves)
  • Jack Schofield, Bad apples, The Guardian, 2003 November 20 (be careful about what you believe)
  • Offensive jargon comes under fire, BBC, 2003 November 27 (technology firms supplying LA County are asked to avoid potentially offensive terms such as "master" and "master")
  • Ashley Norris, Orange's smartest phone yet, The Guardian, 2003 November 27 (the third incarnation of Orange's Windows-powered SPV smartphone reaches stores this week)
  • John Mullen, Queen of pedants, The Guardian, 2003 December 2 (commas, hyphens and the importance of correct colon usage - how has Lynne Truss's book on punctuation become a bestseller?)
  • Celebrating punctuation, The Economist, 2003 December 3 (birth of the Apostrophe Liberation Society; more on Eats, Shoots and Leaves)
  • Google to expand into India, BBC, 2003 December 12 (the popular internet search engine tells the Wall Street Journal it will open a research centre in India)
  • Telstra launches online DVD rental service, The Age, 2004 January 19 (Telstra has launched an online DVD rental service called fetchmemovies to provide subscribers with access to films and software programs without leaving homes)
  • Video phone operators go in for censorship, The Age, 2004 January 19 (PA: the six largest mobile phone operators are joining forces to bar children who buy the latest internet mobile phones from using pornography, gambling and other adult services)
  • Sam Varghese, Taking the stuffing out of Microsoft, The Age, 2004 January 22 (to the world at large, the word Microsoft means one thing - computer software; in Australia, the trademark Microsoft is also used, legally, by a company which manufactures pillows and quilts)
  • David McKie, Twaddle unswaddled, The Guardian, 2004 February 7 (Francis Wheen's merciless look at our current obsession with the peddlers of gobbledegook, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World)
  • Yinka Adegote, Straight to video, The Guardian, 2004 February 9 (television commercials are about to storm the internet thanks to a technological breakthrough, but is it good online advertising?)
  • David Flynn, Can the spam, The Age, 2004 February 14 (of the estimated 30 billion emails that whiz around the web every day, 60 per cent is unsolicited unwanted junk mail)
  • David Walker, The battle for the web, The Age, 2004 February 17 (a free program originally branded "patchy" has undermined Microsoft's intentions of dominating web server software)
  • Charles Wright, Plan ahead to keep mobile costs down, The Age, 2004 February 17 (do your sums ahead before hiring off that SMS)
  • Ian Mayes, Glimpses of something shocking, The Guardian, 2004 February 21 (questions raised by the Guardian's use of English)
  • Donald Knuth, Tracy Larrabee and Paul Roberts Mathematical Writing (PDF)
  • Rafael Behr, Weasel words and forked tongues (Steven Poole's pessimism goes too far in his attack on political jargon, Unspeak)
  • Tech jargon "confuses workers" (the majority of office workers are bamboozled by technical terms and computer jargon)
  • Piracy "in almost every street" (film and music investigators issue a warning to counterfeiters operating from home computers across Scotland)