Consistency in wording and punctuation in Audacity

Gale 11Dec12: This page is not exported to the Manual so please do not translate it.

GUI Elements

• "Auto-select", not "Auto-Select", "Autoselect", "AutoSelect" or "Auto Select"
• "built-in", not "builtin" or "built in"
• "checkbox". not "check-box" or "check box"
• "dialog", not "window" or "dialog window" (for all windows that open as a result of doing something else in the project window)
• "dropdown", not "drop-down" or "drop down"
• "Loop Play", not "Loop-Play" or "Loop-play"
• "mouse pointer", not "mouse cursor"
• "Play-at-Speed", not "Play-at-speed" or "Play at speed"
• "plug-in", not "plugin" or "plug in" (unless you are physically plugging hardware in)

Peter 19May15: And it is reverted today to the hyphenated plug-in as we do not want to change the Plug-Is folder to the unhyphenated form (as specified in bug #915 as it is too complicated technically with regard to forwards/backwards compatibility.

• "Quick-Play" not "Quick Play" or "Quickplay" - hyphenated compound word for a single entity rather than the two word "Quick Play" (it is Play that can be accessed quickly, not Play that plays quickly).
• "Selection Formats" not "Time Formats" or "Time Units"
  • To detail selection formats we say these are "various time units, samples or media frames" or (longer) "various time units, samples, audio CD frames or film frames"
• "selection region", not "selection area" because menus refer to "regions"
• "Timeline", not "ruler" or "horizontal ruler" or "time ruler"
• "Time digits" not "Time values" for TimeText spin boxes as in Selection Toolbar
  • To describe what the "time digits" are in Selection Toolbar, say they are "digits representing time or other formats".
• "Time Shift Tool", not "Move Tool"
• "Track Dropdown Menu", not "Track Pop-Down Menu" (items "drop" down or "pop" up)
• "Toolbar", not "Tool Bar"
• "Tooldock" not "Tool Dock" or "Tool-dock"

Wording and punctuation

Please at all times avoid using a semi-colon for punctuation as this can lead to page edits being blocked due to suspected sql code injection.

These are our suggested guidelines for consistency in wording. Please add to them, or comment if a change is thought desirable.

• US English ... examples:
  • "artifact" not "artefact"
  • "behavior" not "behaviour"
  • "center/centered" not "centre/centred"
  • "check/uncheck the box" not "tick/untick the box"
  • "color" not "colour"
  • "dialog" not "dialogue"
  • "gray/grayed" not "grey/greyed"
  • "labeling/labeled" not "labelling/labelled"
  • "normalize" not "normalise"
  • "through" not "thru"

Peter 25Jun15: I discussed this at AU14 with Vaughan with particular regard as to why we had "Software Playthrough" instead of "Software Playthru" in Recording Preferences and Transport Menu. He assured me, as a native speaker, that "thru", whilst used in the US mainly informally and in signage, was not regarded as proper US English.

• Abbreviations should not be used for commonly used phrases - "for example", not "e.g.", "and similar", not "etc.", "and others" not "et al."
  • Do not use forms like "isn't", "won't", "doesn't" etc. as these are conversational forms, so only use these when quoting actual speech or in ednotes/ Instead use is not, will not, does not etc. The only exception is in the FAQ's where the titles are framed as pseudo user questions (pseudo quoted speech).
• Audacity when used as the proper name of our editor must be capitalized - "Audacity", not "audacity".
• Audiobook, not "audio-book" or "audio book"
• 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit, 32-bit and similarly hyphenated for all bit depths.
• Click versus Press versus Hit versus Choose: "Click" on a button UI element, not "press", "Choose" an item from a menu or a list, not "click" , "Press" a keyboard key, not "hit" it.
• "Command-line", not "Command line"
• Commas (multiple): when used in a sentence or phrase should not include the final comma, so should not be used at all to divide two concepts, for example, "use the amplify or normalize effect" not "use the amplify, or normalize effect" and "the advantages are in accessibility, portability and cheapness" not "the advantages are in accessibility, portability, and cheapness"
• Crossfade, not "cross fade" or "cross-fade".

• File formats with any implication of extension or the final file should be fully capitalized without preceding period (full stop), so:
  • "MP3", not "Mp3", "mp3", ".mp3" or ".MP3", "OGG", not "Ogg" or ".Ogg"

This seems closest to general usage and makes it the most distinct from surrounding text without confusing due to the period (though strictly, that is more correct). The case of the Ogg Vorbis format is complex. "Ogg Vorbis" is the colloquial name of the format and should not be capitalized, but it is strictly the Vorbis format encapsulated in a container having OGG extension. So, any instance of "OGG" on its own should be capitalized.

• Fractions are usually written out as text for clarity, and hyphenated: "two-thirds" not "2/3 or "two thirds".
• Frequencies: Use values in Hz, not kHz in almost all cases. This matches with the Audacity interface almost everywhere, and prevents confusion in novices if mixing units. For example, "the frequency can vary between 200 Hz and 2 kHz" is very strongly discouraged. If it is necessary to refer to a UI element where kHz is actually displayed (for example, in the Graphic EQ slider tooltips), then kHz should be used with the corresponding Hz value in brackets for comparison.
• Hyphens:
  • "double-click" not "double click"
  • "downward-pointing" not "downward pointing"
  • "multi-channel" not multichannel.
  • "right-click" not "right-click"

Note that there are no spaces between the hyphen. If separating clauses in a sentence, use a single hyphen with a single space either side. Always use hyphens, dashes (longer) in text are not allowed.

• Internet:
  • "email" not "e-mail" or "E-mail"
  • "website" not "web-site", "web site" or "site"
  • "browser" not "web browser", "web-browser" or "webbbrowser"

• Keys should be in sentence case with the initial letter capitalized and the remaining letters lower case
  • "Ctrl" not "CTRL" or "ctrl"
  • "Cmd" not "CMD", "cmd", "Cmnd", "CMND" or "cmnd" - but see immediately below
  • "Tab" not "TAB" or "tab"
  • "Shift" not "SHIFT" or "shift"
  • "Alt" not "ALT" or "alt"
  • "Delete" not "DELETE" or "delete"
  • "Home" not "HOME" or "home"
  • "End" not "END" or "end"
  • "Esc" not "ESC", "esc", "Escape" or "escape"

• Keyboard or mouse shortcuts should be referred to as "shortcuts", not "hotkeys". Use upper case, and "+" not "-" to separate key presses (generally, this should make them more readily understood), so "Ctrl + 1" not "CTRL +1", "Ctrl-1" or "CTRL-1". The actual shortcut should be included inside {{shortcut}} templates as described at Templates, Spans and Divs.
  • On Mac where the Command key replaces the Ctrl key functionality we use the Apple clover key (the "place of interest" symbol). This is expressed in the Manual by using the text "Cmd" in a shortcut div, thus {{shortcut|Cmd + A}} which displays as ⌘ + A. This is generated by means of a template: Template:Shortcut.
• Menu paths are formatted inside {{menu|...}} not <span class="menu"></span> tags

and navigation arrows should be indicated by " > ", not "->".

• Numbers have no spaces or commas ("44100 Hz", not "44,100 Hz " or "44 100 Hz"). Any numbers over a million (probably none) we'll consider if they arise. Generally, numbers less than 10 are written out as text ("five tracks" not "5 tracks", "this happens two times" not "this happens 2 times").
  An exception to this is where the number is a unit of measurement - hence "0.5 seconds" is preferred to "half a second", and "4 bits" to "four bits".
• Quotes are inside double quotes, not single, so " ", not ' '. If quotes are needed inside an HTML span or div, escape each double quote by wrapping it inside <nowiki> tags thus: <nowiki>"</nowiki> quoted text <nowiki>"</nowiki>.

• Software/hardware terminology: opinions vary but we choose the most common pro usage or the most common in US English if there is no consensus:
  • "cutoff" (noun), not "cut-off" or "cut off" (changed 26Mar14 from previous recommendation of "cut-off" after research suggested that non-hyphenated version "may" be more common in US audio usage).
  • Disk versus disc: Use "disk" for magnetic computer storage such as "disk drive" or for Solid Stae Drives (SSDs), and "disc" for optical storage media like CD or DVD.
  • "dropout" (noun), not "drop-out" or "drop out"
  • File name (two words) not "filename".
  • "FFmpeg", not FFMPEG or ffmpeg
  • "hi-fi", not hifi, HiFi or Hi-Fi
  • "LAME", not Lame or lame (when referring to the encoder)
  • "mouse wheel", not "mouse-wheel" or "mousewheel"
  • "playhead", not "play-head", or "play head"
  • "punch-in", not "punch in" or "punchin"
  • "Real-time", not "real time" or "real-time"
  • "resampling", not "re-sampling"
  • "Ringtone", not "ring tone" or "ring-tone"
  • "RMS", not "rms"
  • "rpm", not "RPM"
  • "rolloff" (noun), not "roll-off" or "roll off"
  • "soundcard", not "sound card" or "sound-card"
  • "username", one word, not "user name" or "user-name"
• "in synchronization" , not "in sync", "synchronized" not "synced" unless explicitly referring to an Audacity GUI element that says "Sync"*
• Units: "dB" not "db", "seconds" and "milliseconds" not "s" and "ms". "inch" or "inches", not '' or ". "mm" is acceptable for millimetres. There must always be a space between the value and the unit (for example, "10 dB" not "10dB").
• "Vamp", not "VAMP" or "vamp" - it's not an acronym, Chris Cannam Vamp's author writes "... it's a word, Vamp, rather than an abbreviation, VAMP" - and capitalized as a proper noun
• "vice versa", not "vice-versa"