Is it actually officially correct to use "eg" instead of "e.g.", and "ie" instead of "i.e." in English? (UK, US, AU, or whichever else?) Both http://dictionary.cambridge.org and http://dictionary.com seem to show only "e.g." and "i.e." for me?
It recommends dropping the dots.
I know we were taught in school to treat them as abbreviations and therefore include the dots so I'm not sure where this new fashion comes from.
No, the correct form is "e.g." and "i.e.", and screen readers cope with those fine. People also get "etc." wrong a lot, writing it as "ect", which presumably screen readers would fail at, too.
Since people get it wrong, and there are more natural ways of writing these, these guidelines seem quite reasonable.
> People also get "etc." wrong a lot, writing it as "ect", which presumably screen readers would fail at, too.
You seem to be assuming that a screen reader's job is to somehow communicate meaning. It isn't. It's my job to listen and decide what I'm hearing. If you read "ect.", your brain automatically corrects it to "etc." because you're used to seeing it often. It's probably subconscious, right? It works exactly the same for me. I'm well-versed in the spelling/grammatical/other errors many people make when writing, the only difference is that I consume them via my ears, not my eyes.
Or, to put it another way, think about a guide dog. Its job is to actually guide a blind person, make decisions, keep them safe. It actually has to think. I prefer my assistive technology as dumb as possible though, so I use a cane. Its my job to use the cane, take in what it's telling me about the ground and area immediately around me, and quickly make decisions based on that information. The screen reader is more like a cane than a guide dog, basically.
> If you read "ect.", your brain automatically corrects it to "etc." because you're used to seeing it often. It's probably subconscious, right?
Not at all. Seeing errors like "ect", use of the wrong words like the all-too-common mix-up of "then" and "than", and even the omission of dots in things like "eg" and "ie" is very jarring to me. It usually pulls me out of automatic reading in order to consciously work out what the author actually meant. Even when I've worked it out, I find it hard to substitute the real meaning for what's literally there. Not that I necessarily blame the author, as I understand that mistakes do happen, but it does noticably harm readability for me.
I do find your description of your preference on assistive technology very interesting, as it differs from the preferences expressed by my visually impaired friends. They get varyingly amused and annoyed by their screen readers not understanding idiomatic things and reading them too literally. I wonder if the difference is that you're the kind of technical person that reads Hacker News, whereas they're both arty types who don't really do computers any more than the average person does. I suspect that were I to ever need to use a screen reader, I'd prefer the dumb ones like you do.
Ah, this seems to make sense, thx! Pity that this extended rationale is not present in the original article. Actually, this seems to render the article's claim rather unfair in laying the blame on screen readers ("[screen readers] read ‘eg’ incorrectly"), as it appears it should be rather "we have many errors of 'eg' instead of 'e.g.' in our texts, and they're too hard to catch for our editors"
edit: personally, I don't have to use a screen reader, but I do read words "aloud" in my mind when reading, and I believe seeing "eg" or "ie" without dots would make me stumble mentally too...
It seems that a lot of style guides these days actually recommend "eg" and "ie" over the versions with dots in a misguided attempt at simplification. I guess with those guides out there, the damage is already done.
Personally I always try to re-write sentences that use "e.g.", "i.e." or "etc.", as I think they're symptomatic of lazy writing. There's usually a much better way to write what you're trying to say. Similarly with excessive use of parenthetical clauses.
https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-e
It recommends dropping the dots. I know we were taught in school to treat them as abbreviations and therefore include the dots so I'm not sure where this new fashion comes from.