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Re: Rule needed: expressing temperatures in two units of measurement in text
Subject:Re: Rule needed: expressing temperatures in two units of measurement in text From:Thorsten Konersmann <tk -at- documentation -dot- engineering> To:Lin Sims <ljsims -dot- ml -at- gmail -dot- com> Date:Tue, 18 Jun 2019 13:51:57 +0200
In CMoS 17th ed. and in the CSE's Scientific Style and Format 8th ed., I
have not found such a rule specifically for US and metric units. I agree
with David's common-sense argument though.
As a "credible source" to make your point, maybe you can use this:
Rule 6.96 in CMoS 17th ed.: "Parentheses are used to enclose glosses of
unfamiliar terms or translations from other languages ..."
One roughly analogous example given for rule 6.96 is this: "The term you
should use for 1,000,000,000 is *mil milliones* (billion), not *billiÃn*
(trillion)."
Another analogous example that comes to mind are reports mentioning foreign
currency, such as this sentence from a Financial Times article: "... data
... showed foreign investors selling a net Y3.9tn ($35bn) of Japanese
stocks so far in 2018 ..." ( https://www.ft.com/content/abe7de72-ac66-11e8-94bd-cba20d67390c)
On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 3:33 AM David Artman <David -at- davidartman -dot- com> wrote:
> I think the only convention requires audience respect. The primary unit is
> given to the audience that expects it; the secondary unit is parenthetical
> for the (smaller!) audience that needs it.The parentheses are prefect,
> because... Uh, they're parenthetical info. Forget slashes or any other
> demarcation.Choosing which is first depends on the audience.I'd even
> consider engineering something in the tool stack that lets writers enter
> each value and the output generator (OG) picks the order automatically.
> (Really good opportunity for extending DITA specialization.)Bonus points if
> the source can include only one unit of measure (using an attribute to
> inform the OG of the unit standard) and then the OG does (or does NOT) the
> conversion and insertion. Why pay writers to (a) do rote math and (b)
> control presentation?TL;DR: parentheses, audience standard first. I have no
> source for that standard other than logic.HTH,David[DCA:d.a.d.]
> -------- Original message --------From: Lauren <lauren -at- writeco -dot- net> Date:
> 6/17/19 21:06 (GMT-05:00) To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Subject: Re:
> Rule needed: expressing temperatures in two units of measurement
> in text I don't know if there is a rule but the convention you
> describe is common and I've seen it in recipes. I have also seen a slash
> used but that can be disruptive with measurements.On 6/17/2019 9:17 AM, Lin
> Sims wrote:> In most of the companies I've worked at, when providing
> measurements in> both US and metric units, the style has been to provide
> the measurements> in one unit with the equivalent being provided in
> following parenthesis.>> So, expressing a length as "1.5 inch (40 mm)", or
> expressing a range as:> "-4 ÂF to 77 ÂF (-20 ÂC to 25 ÂC)".>> But is there
> an actual rule for that? And if so, where? I've been googling,> but so far
> all I've been able to find is a page on Nat Geo that provides> the above
> style in an example but provides no actual rule. My Gregg, Sun,> and
> Microsoft Style Guides don't address it at
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