# Technical Vocabulary and Grammar


By Ben Ramsey

Published on January 20, 2006


This is in response to Chris Shiflett's "[Technical Vocabulary and Grammar](http://shiflett.org/blog/2006/jan/technical-vocabulary-and-grammar)" post. My comment became so long that I decided to blog it instead.

Being someone with a degree in English…

I've always heard to treat collective nouns (groups, etc.) as plurals. So, "Brain Bulb are…" would be correct. However, reading through [_Lapsing Into a Comma_][comma] by Bill Walsh (pg. 101) and [_The Associated Press Stylebook 2005_][ap] under the "collective nouns" entry, it would appear that nouns denoting unit take on singular verbs and pronouns, while nouns denoting individual items use plural verbs. For example (taken from _Stylebook_):

> Right: _A thousand bushels is a good yield._ (A unit.) \
> Right: _A thousand bushels were created._ (Individual items.) \
> Right: _The data is sound._ (A unit.) \
> Right: _The data have been carefully collected._ (Individual items.)

Thus, a company name could possibly use either form, depending on the context. I can't think of an example off the top of my head that would illustrate the differences.

As for periods and commas within quotation marks, I think this is often a confusing issue for professionals, much less students. In American English, though, commas and periods go inside the quotation marks, period; semicolons and colons never go inside quotation marks. Question marks and exclamation points depend on the context. Contrary to popular belief about usage of commands, etc., there are no exceptions to this rule. (See section 2.7.7 in the [_MLA Handbook_][mla], pg. 92 in _Comma_, and pg. 334 in _Stylebook_.)

I agree that this can lead to confusion in technical writing when explaining something to enter at the command prompt, etc. However, to resolve this, I would personally not place the command in quotation marks. Instead, I would set it in a monospaced typeface to indicate that it is a command:

> Then delete a line from the file by typing **`dd`**.

Now, for computer jargon. The one thing that has been bothering me lately is this:

> PC != Windows \
> PC != x86 processor

The term "PC" refers to a "personal computer," which could be any computer running Windows _OR_ Macintosh operating systems, x86 _OR_ PowerPC processors. What's going to happen to this term now that Macs are running on an Intel (x86) processor? Nothing. Everyone at my office will still call their computers "PCs" and mine a "Mac."

Even the publishing community refers to Windows-based computers as "PCs." I can't find any guidelines in my AP style book on this, though.

**UPDATE (23 Jan 2006):** [Chris](http://shiflett.org) points out that even Apple uses the PC vs. Mac distinction in their promotion of the [Intel Core Duo](http://web.archive.org/web/20060118134637/http://www.apple.com/imac/intelcoreduo.html) when they say on their [Web site](http://web.archive.org/web/20060118095424/http://www.apple.com/) "What's an Intel chip doing in a Mac? A whole lot more than it's ever done in a PC."

[comma]: http://www.amazon.com/Lapsing-Into-Comma-Curmudgeons-Print/dp/0809225352
[ap]: https://www.apstylebook.com/
[mla]: http://www.mlahandbook.org/