Re: In and under

[Tom Brown <tombrown -at- TOMBROWN2 -dot- US -dot- DG -dot- COM>]

Our internal style guide cautions that we should always use the trademark
as a modifier, not a noun.  The reasoning is that the trademark distinguishes
the item from others of its class.  In December Sue Heim and PJ Rose
discussed this and Sue cited a Microsoft requirement that all products
working under their operating system appear as "Such-and-such for the
Microsoft(R) Windows(tm) operating system."  I'd be interested to know if
there is a general style guide that addresses the issue.  The Chicago
Manual of Style 13rd ed does not.


> You're right, they are both trademarks, but I don't why that would require
> an adjectival use; you can't specify the part of speech of a trademarked
> word. And Windows, certainly, is used far more as a noun than as an
> adjective. What I've always been told is that one shouldn't use a
> trademarked term as a possessive (for example, Windows' new functionality),
> which would attest to an understanding that such terms are often used as
> nouns. But I could be wrong too.
> -------------
> Original Text
> >From tombrown -at- tombrown2 -dot- us -dot- dg -dot- com (Tom Brown), on 5/26/95 4:50 PM:
> Windows and UNIX are both trademarks, and it is my understanding that
> they should be used only as adjectives -- e.g., UNIX operating system --
> rather than nouns.  But I could be wrong. :)

> >
> > I agree that this is idiomatic, all the more reason to simplify it.
> > Consider that the sentence is not really parallel in that it uses the the
> > phrase "the Windows environment" with just "Unix." Get rid of that say
> > simply "in Windows" and "under Unix" and you've got a sentence that
> sounds
> > silly. Idiomatic traditions, such as "under Unix" were developed in
> > semiliterate environments and the traditions thus carry little weight
> with
> > me. I don't care whether you use "in" or "under"; but use the same for
> > both: "... runs in/under Windows and Unix."
> >