Re:Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
by jordan0day on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @12:08PM
(#7225523)
Yeah the harping on "fewer" vs. "less" and completely ignoring the "2" bothered me too. In my time as a newspaper writer (long ago), the general rule of thumb we used was once you hit 13, switch to numbers. Of course, newspapers have different priorities regarding space, so I could understand if this rule is different for other forms of writing.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
by dllthomas on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @12:59PM
(#7225995)
I think the "2" is appropriate here. This is not protracted discourse, it's a label. When my sentence lights up some color, and my eyes jump to the sidebar and find that color, we want the max count to pop in a way that it shouldn't in ordinary text.
Re:Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
by ScottBurson on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @06:37PM
(#7228250)
I recall reading somewhere the phrase "nine or 10". Clearly the writer (or editor) was adhering rather mindlessly to the house rule.