First world annoyance
Saturday, November 19th, 2011 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsaikoDear survey designers,
If you're going to only list the states abbreviations (CA, NC, IN, etc.) by all that's holy, put them in alphabetical order by the abbreviations and not by their full names. You have no idea how much it irritates me to see appearing ME before MD or VT before VA. Besides which, it makes you look like you don't know the order of the alphabet and makes it twice as hard for people to find what they are looking for.
No love,
Tsaiko
EDIT: I am agog that half the style guides I'm seeing recommend alphabetizing abbreviations by the abbreviation itself and half by the word spelled out. How does that even make any sort of sense? My favorite is one where they tell you alphabetize based on the word itself unless it's a widely accepted abbreviation. Who gets to make that call?
My brain hurts.
If you're going to only list the states abbreviations (CA, NC, IN, etc.) by all that's holy, put them in alphabetical order by the abbreviations and not by their full names. You have no idea how much it irritates me to see appearing ME before MD or VT before VA. Besides which, it makes you look like you don't know the order of the alphabet and makes it twice as hard for people to find what they are looking for.
No love,
Tsaiko
EDIT: I am agog that half the style guides I'm seeing recommend alphabetizing abbreviations by the abbreviation itself and half by the word spelled out. How does that even make any sort of sense? My favorite is one where they tell you alphabetize based on the word itself unless it's a widely accepted abbreviation. Who gets to make that call?
My brain hurts.
