I know it's English 101, but I still have this doubt and I want to solve it: do words ending in an "s" receive the apostrophe and an additional "s" when forming the possesive? I was taught that they do not receive the "s", but then I read somewhere that they can receive the "s".
@AlanMunn The above message contains my question.
Now I feel ashamed! Bothering you with such trivial questions!
It's not a problem. And this is a kind of crazy rule. First of all, it's not really driven by spelling, but by pronunciation. So here it is. Generally, a word that ends in a sibilant /s/ or /z/ (orthographically "s", "se", "z", "ze", and sometimes even "x" and "ce" will just have the apostrophe and no "s": so the the dogs' tails. But sometimes they do: for example, The Jones's house but Socrates' students.
Unfortunately knowing the pronunciations is something that is automatic for me as a native speaker, and so the rule isn't very difficult, but I'm not sure I actually understand it explicitly enough to explain it. I browsed the Wikipedia entry which looks solid enough on the topic (although it says some wacky things about the 'ce' cases, which I've never seen spelled with just the apostrophe.
So Socrateses (I'm avoiding IPA here) doesn't sound right, so you don't add the 's', but "Jesuses" does sound right, so you can add the "s".
I will have a look at the Wikipedia entry. Thanks again. Just a quick test example (for me): "parentses" do sound right to me, so "parents" will have the final "s". Am I right?
@GonzaloMedina Yes. Let me check with a phonologist friend who seems to be online at the moment. If he responds to my chat I might have a better explanation for you.
@GonzaloMedina He disappeared. You've got me puzzled now on what the phonological condition is. I'll ask around and see if I can come up with something. For the meantime feel free to keep asking your "trivial" questions. :-)
@PauloCereda I feel like posting a big "HARUMPH" comment on that blog since the ideas attributed to the travel site were all ones that we did first! I think that your comment should have mentioned this ...
While not directly related to TeX, I'd say that a good read of Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style is relevant here. There is a lot of very careful detail in the book, and for example the discussion on altering font kerning is very useful. What it suggests more than anything is that yo...
@GonzaloMedina: Do you understand the problem in this question: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/38345/environment-for-text-to-run-into-margins I can't and so I can not improve the package.
As in the title, I'd like to be able to select whether TeXShop uses biber or BibTeX in the document rather than using the command line or changing the default in the TeXShop preferences.
For TeX engines this is easy; i.e. you can put the following somewhere near the top of your TeX file
% !TEX ...
@egreg I've asked Dick about doing that. It probably wouldn't be done exactly that way, but it would be a really useful thing to have as more people switch between bibtex and biber.
@AlanMunn I'd like also that TeXShop and TeXworks used the same style for the "magic lines". I know that TeXworks understands TeXShop's, but those for TeXworks are easier
@AlanMunn For example, to declare UTF-8 encoding, with TeXworks it's sufficient to say %! TEX encoding = UTF-8, instead of %! TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode. Also the TS- prefix for program could be dropped.
I see. I suspect this will be a low priority feature, especially since there is a macro to insert the line for you in TeXShop. But it would make sense.
@AlanMunn %! TEX bibprogram = biber would be probably the choice, since TEX is only for announcing what follows to the program. I wouldn't favor %! BIB program=...
But I'd like also the possibility to write TeX instead of TEX (TeXworks accepts it).
@MarkSEveritt How would that work? In the ConTeXt world, things are run by a script almost all of the time, but for plain or LaTeX users the editor just runs the engine
@Canageek I think @MarkSEveritt's solution shows a way in which many of these things could be implemented independently of the editor. (Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant.)
@JosephWright Also, I find latexmk very annoying; if you compile often, it slows things down quite a bit. I prefer to run latex and bibtex separately and use latexmk only towards the very end of a project.
@JosephWright What I don't get is the difference between latexmk, which he doesn't want, and a script: Isn't one just a script YOU wrote vs one that someone else wrote?
@Canageek See my previous comment. latexmk is slow, and for intermediate compilations (which are the vast majority) not really necessary. So separating bibtex runs from latex runs manually is more efficient IMO.
@AlanMunn Ah, I don't change my citations until the end most of the time, so BibTeX doesn't run that often. Also since sumatra PDF updates as the file does, I can start reading while BiBTeX is still running anyway
@Canageek latexmk always wants to resolve references, so it runs bibtex or biber each time that a bibliographic reference is added; it runs LaTeX twice or more every time a \label is added or it has changed its value. During document preparation it is almost always irrelevant if a cross-reference is incorrect.
@egreg Ah, I've not worked with it heavily yet-- I was writing a history essay, so it only run it when I added a reference, in which case I would want to see that the reference had been added.
TeXStudio has an error pane. HOWEVER, it sometimes messed things up. It however will take you right to the relevent line in the log file, most of the time anyway.
Oh, plus an argument to include the next few lines.
@MarkSEveritt My version of using BiBLaTeX is that I past the *.bib file the paper gives me into my *.bib file, then edit out the cruft and change the keyword to something I will remeber >.>
@lockstep Don't we only have 2 of those? I don't see a list looking anything like either of those, though I suppose both my question and a CV want to get attention.
Actually I have been contemplating a "How do I not go #)(*$ insane when making a multilevel indented list?" question, as mine tend to be -Main -Subpoint -Main -Subpoint -Subpoint
which means I'm writing a LOT of \begin{itemize} \end{itemize} statements. A LOT of them.
I know now bits of wikimarkup (Forgotten most of it, haven't been a regular editor for ages), markdown (tiny, learning), LaTeX (Decent, improving), html (Not used really since elementary school, so very tiny bits)....
Could we just all agree to use LaTeX for everything and make a LaTeX engine for infinite pages and that compiled everything to 90% then finished when it found out the width of the page?
@MarkSEveritt Really, I'd like it if web browsers just implemented TeX's text layout algorithms. Justified web pages? SURE, why not? Wouldn't even need the rest of it; that one change would make the web so much more readable.
@Canageek However, advancements in HTML and associated technologies along with exciting new LaTeX things could conceivably bridge the gap one day soon.
@MarkSEveritt Or we will hit the point at which you can compile LaTeX faster then the transfer time of the graphics, so you could compile it before they arrive without hte user noticing
@MarkSEveritt We can't even get LaTeX to take svg as input. Well, someone mentioned you could with TikZ, but I have no idea how.
@Canageek Remember though, the speed of a web browser is really determined by the slowest, crappiest browser on the planet. So some old Nokia phone from 2002.
@MarkSEveritt I'd say anything older then IE6 is fine to ignore now that MS is pulling the pulg on that. But yeah, compiling LaTeX on an android would be painful
@MarkSEveritt The biggest issue for me is that high-quality layout can't be reflowed. For example, The LaTeX Companion needed hand-adjustment of about 10% of the pages
@Canageek The two tasks are fundamentally different. Read up on book design, for example Bringhurst, and see how much effort is needed to choose the font, page layout, margins etc to match the text.
@MarkSEveritt Yes, becuse everyone goes "I can put this on the web, since not-bad web devs are cheap right now, then I don't have to pay a real software designer"
@MarkSEveritt It is odd, when I was being taught C I was annoyed at having to use malloc and no dynamic arrays, etc. Then I learn C++ and get sick of having to do weird things and all the OO people's snobbiness.
Fortress is a programming language designed for high-performance computing. It was created by Sun Microsystems with funding from DARPA's High Productivity Computing Systems project. One of the language designers is Guy L. Steele Jr., whose previous work includes Scheme, Common Lisp, and Java.
Language features
The name "Fortress" is intended to connote a secure Fortran, i.e., "a language for high-performance computation that provides abstraction and type safety on par with modern programming language principles". Its improvements include implicit parallelism, Unicode support and concr...
@MarkSEveritt Then why is it using the JavaVM? Java is slow. Oh, I see.
So, now I just need to learn that, and C, write my own compiler, kidnap a really good programmer and make him write me one that doesn't suck, and hope it catches on enough to have decent library support.
@JosephWright OR? Also what is rare, exact placement of figures? Or text flowing around them? It is common in papers and RPG books to have text flow around figures, ditto textbooks.
@AlanMunn Have the numbers in the right format, have the numbers in the right order, have the table of figures match the figures, have the references not show "ERROR: FIGURE NOT FOUND"
@JosephWright Or a 'Don't be a dick LateX, I don't want my figure halfway down the next page, away from the text talking about it. No, I also don't want it at the bottom of the page with a huge amount of whitespace in front of it. Ok, moving it to the appendix with no warning and putting it in with my source code doesn't help either' command.
@Canageek Of course, several. You don't have to put graphics inside a figure, can use \captionof from the caption package or the H specifier from the float package.
@Canageek Yes, this is one of the biggest misconceptions about images (and tables) in LaTeX. You can always just use \includegraphics or \begin{tabular} anywhere in your document and things will show up exactly there.
@JosephWright I personally don't like H very much (although in some cases it can be useful); my opinion is that if you don't want objects to float, then don't use float environments in the first place.
@GonzaloMedina I guess I take a slightly different view: the fact that figure floats by default does not stop it being useful mark up for 'contains a figure' even if you don't want a float.
@JosephWright it's, indeed, a different view; of course, using figure to contain a figure can be seen as more intuitive than using minipage; perhaps the name figure for the environment was not the better choice...
Oh I just needed to tell someone about how doomed I am. No idea why I thought a class on how CPUs work would be a good elective to take in my last year. Nothing to do with the above.
It also depends on which publishers we are talking about
@Canageek Currently, changing design in LaTeX2e is a bit of a pain, partly because the kernel fixes some values and partly because there is nothing like CSS for LaTeX
We want to separate out programming, design and use
We are making progress (finally) on this
@brunolefloch has threatened to write his thesis in LaTeX3: he's supposed to finish in 2014!
@JosephWright ACS, PNAS, Elsevier, wiley, etc. Noooo, CSS is evil, then I have to work in two documents, and crazy bad things happen *hides under the bed*
@Canageek CSS is fine provided you see the two processes separately: one is creating the page content, one is designing the page. We want the same idea: really going for 'LaTeX is about content' when you are using it.
@Canageek Hmm, some chance at ACS, none at Wiley, good chance at Elsevier, I'd say
What we're after is the LaTeX document staying ~ the same, but the preamble being very different
@Canageek Yes. For example, currently it's very hard to alter the way that sections look unless you load a package, which is effectively providing a custom design layer. Try using \@startsection!
@Canageek Not 100% clear at present. One discussion still-to-have is what should be 'kernel' and what should be 'load optionally'. Frank Mittelbach has said we need 'all of The LaTeX Companion' in the kernel.
There have been some big new packages since then, and I guess they'd also be 'in'.
For example, I'll push very hard for citations to be managed by an approach similar to biblatex
@JosephWright about fonts, will I still be unable to understand what LaTeX is doing with them? I tried reading the NFSS section in The LaTeX Companion but my head hurt, and I didn't see anything I could actually use.
Question: Since all LaTeX is just marcos on TeX, couldn't you just compile it down to pure TeX, the way some programming languages compile to C?
@Canageek There are competing issues in this area. I'm in favour of easy naming, similar to a GUI, but I know that there are issues with that.
@Canageek No, since the definition of TeX macro can change during the run. This is a vital TeX programming technique, but means that we can't simply expand everything to it's definition exhaustively.
@JosephWright Could there at least be a way to look up the names easily? Like a list all fonts command? The hardest part of using fonts without loading a pcakge right now is looking up that name.
@JosephWright By that I mean, if we stick with the existing special LaTeX fonts, could there be a clearer 'use this font here' command then what there is now?
Currently, my idea is that we might have a 'friendly' layer which will translate 'Palladio' into 'TeX Gyre Pagella' and then into the file name, unless of course you own Palladio in which case it will load the paid-for version.
@Canageek That should be done by setting up the design of the title. Now, at present the base classes don't provide an interface to do that, but things like KOMA-Script do
If Frank M is not busy, we are hoping to get on with a lot of 'design layer' work in the next year or so. That may, of course, depend on 'real life'. (For example, my postdoc ends in February and I currently need to find a new job)
@Canageek That's the general idea. Deciding on the keys will be interesting!
@JosephWright I was thinking more a 'I don't care how old the TeX install is, I want this to compile at the other end, no matter if they are on TeX86 or ran tlmgr this morning'
@Canageek It is, but you can't get a list of the names in the hash table out of TeX other than in a dump
You have to know the names to do, say, \meaning \foo
This is another thing I'm worrying about for LaTeX3. What we'd like is that, once we do reach a truly usable kernel, we'd like to have a mechanism which says 'Compile with the kernel of date X', while still allowing changes as needed
@egreg: I don't believe that the explanation of the "Bug in subcaption" is correct. I don't know it but I tested the example with subfig and everything works well:
\documentclass{article} \usepackage{subfig}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\begin{document} \begin{figure*} \subfloat[Fig1a\label{fig:1a}]{% } \hfill \subfloat[Fig1b\label{fig:1b}]{ \begin{tabularx}{0.5\textwidth}{r} Figure 1b \end{tabularx} } \caption{Fig1} \label{fig:1} \end{figure*} \begin{figure} Figure 2 \caption{Fig2 caption} \label{fig:2} \end{figure} Figures \ref{fig:1a}, \ref{fig:1b}, and \ref{fig:1} should be 1a, 1b and 1; Figure \ref{fig:2} should be 2. \end{document}
My paper includes several graphs that are all much too long to make as tables, so I made them figures (copy and paste from spreadsheet to paint). My paper has to include a list of figures and a list of tables, and I would like to know if there is a way that I can trick LaTeX into thinking that th...