Nostradamus the technical writer?

Subject: Nostradamus the technical writer?
From: "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:47:37 -0400

(As Geoff desperately tries to drag this thread back on-topic ...)

Interesting that amidst this thread, nobody's observed how good a technical
writer Nostradamus was. Lacking clear or definitive product specifications
(for the future), or access to the designer (okay... the Designer, with a
capital D <g>), he still managed to find a way to phrase things so
clearly--yet so obscurely--that his user manuals for the coming years could
be cheerfully interpreted in any way that works for the reader. Such genius!

Of course, the skeptic might note that Monsieur de Nostre Dame was in fact
practicing escatology, not eschatology. A coincidence or simple typo?
Nope... they were just sloppier about spelling in the good ol' days. And as
the bank manager robbed by a tarot-reading employee was later heard to
complain, "I shoulda never trusted an eschatologist to be my fortune's
teller." <gdrlh>

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
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"How are SF writers like technical writers? Well, we both write about the
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