I've run into a few people who insisted on reporting DNA concentrations in micrograms per microlitre. In principle no better nor worse than mg/ml, I suppose, but doesn't exactly roll off the tongue like "migs per mill" does. I propose "Mikes per Michael" as the vocal abbreviation.
Tristan Croll
Lecturer
Faculty of Health
School of Biomedical Sciences
Institute of Health and Biomedical Engineering
Queensland University of Technology
60 Musk Ave
Kelvin Grove QLD 4059 Australia
+61 7 3138 6443
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On 31 Dec 2015, at 7:11 PM, Keller, Jacob <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> All fictional of course
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> Is reviewer #1 real? If so, I am somewhat sympathetic, since I like saying "migs per mill" (personally preferred over "migs per emmell"). Alliteration is a good thing. The purist in me, however, has always wondered why g/L is not the preferred unit, since the m's should cancel. Also needs two less characters. But I think things that are hard to say are somehow harder to read as well, but maybe that is a peculiarity of how I read silently, which is similar to reading out loud. I therefore disfavor names of proteins like Aar2gamma^6lemonZz and prefer names like crambin.
>
> While we're on the topic--has there been any movement to get rid of strange characters (e.g. alpha, hbar, angstrom A) and hard-to-type mathematical notations (even sub- and superscripts) in favor of easily-type-able forms? Seems that huge amounts of time, difficulty, powerpoint snafus, and miscommunications could be thereby avoided.
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> The main rule in writing I recall from Strunk and White is not to use things that distract from smooth flow of the intended meaning into the mind of the reader. It seems that basically all writing style flows from this principle.
>
> JPK
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