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"An historic" is correct.

Not really.

I think the real problem here is that most of the technical folks who are bad with grammar, just don't have any interest at all in learning; or even worse, are vehemently against learning. I'm not the best, but I'm far from the worst at learning. Perhaps if they picked up books from people like Bill Walsh, they might be entertained whilst learning.

Sorry to inform you, but "email" is most definitely not acceptable.

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The grandparent is correct; "20 times smaller" is just plain wrong. But even newspapers have problems with this error, which gives some copy editors fits.

1.) So who's post is at -1, Offtopic?
2.) He is right.
3.) I can't think of anyone nerdier than a copy editor.

I think this is a simple matter of style. Some style guides say you should always put 's after a word, even if it ends in s, some just go with the single apostrophe.

Both conventions have their advocates and their detractors. Advocates of the first convention claim their convention is more correct, while advocates of the second reckon theirs looks more elegant. The pragmatic view is: pick whatever one takes your fancy and use it consistently.

There's good site called The Slot that's aimed at copywriters and discusses this sort of stuff regularly. Also, I've found this book useful; the cutesy pictures of the author's cats scattered through the text make it a somewhat aggrevating read for this geek though...

'E-mail' (uncapitialized) is the preferred term for newspapers and magazines. See what the copy editor of the Washington Post has to say about it. However, I think 'email' is clearly winning out in the battle for the masses, and 'e-mail' will soon be deprecated.

As for punctuation and quotes, I'm with you there. Microsoft English says either is acceptable. AP style and most of what I'm reading says it isn't.

I should check my own links sometimes. Bill Walsh is actually the copy editor for The Washington Post, not The New York Times.

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Divx, the DVD system, is long dead. There is no reason to think people will be confused about it for long -- few people knew about the system when it was still alive! And I would guess that those few people who knew about Divx already know about "DivX ;-)".

Tell me, how do you pronounce "DivX ;-)"? "DivX ;-)" is what's referred to as a logo; Divx is the codec's actual name. The same thing goes for "Yahoo!" by the way. Don't take my word for it -- ask the copy editor of the New York Times. Points six and seven are particularly important here.

I'll be the first to admit that these Divx people can't choose a good name. First, the name of a failed and despised subscription scheme, then whacko capitalization, and finally a cheesy and pointless smilie-face. I think all the work they did to hack the MPG4 codec was just a ruse to see how silly of a name they could get people to accept. Unfortunately, it seems to be working.

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Andover/Slashdot should take a bit of their IPO money and hire some copy editors.