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Joanne Meehl wondered <<How would you alphabetize these words:
key, individual
keypad
Key sequence
key, shared>>
I'd group all phrases that begin with "key" as a separate word before words
that use "key" without a space. Then, use "key" as the main entry, and the
second word in each phrase as a subentry. This makes good sense from an
indexing standpoint, and (bonus!) avoids the issue of how to alphabetize the
space. <g> "Keypad" would then logically follow "key" alphabetically. If
you're not convinced by my logic, or want a reality check that more closely
reflects your audience's needs or skills, look these words up in a
dictionary likely to be in common use by your audience (e.g., AHD or
Webster's in the U.S., Gage in Canada, OED in the U.K.) to see how _they_
handle alphabetization of these words; I assume that the developers of the
dictionary considered this very issue in terms of the characteristics of
their national audience and came to a decision that reflects the audience's
needs, but even if that's not the case, readers familiar with these
dictionaries will already know how to use that alphabetization scheme.
Hofstadter's Law: The time and effort required to complete a project are
always more than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's
Law.
