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Subject:Re: "Appears" vs. "will appear" From:Janice Gelb <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 04 May 2007 11:03:58 +1000
Mike Starr wrote:
> If a localization company ever gave me any crap over something like my
> usage of the word display, I'd have 'em on the horn immediately... I
> wouldn't bother with the contracts department.
>
No "localization company" is giving us crap over
anything. We have an internal localization
department whose job is to tell us how to
phrase our documentation so that our readers
will find it easy to comprehend.
> Sorry... I don't buy that one. Does that mean I need to ratchet back the
> reading level of all of my documentation? Someone who's in the process
> of learning the language can probably misinterpret 60% of the
> terminology in a technical manual. I consider my audience to be
> generally educated non-specialists and write accordingly.
The "caveat emptor" approach might work for
you and your products but while we would
not compromise the level of our documentation
by using condescending language, we prefer to
make our documentation as easy to understand
as possible for the majority of our audience,
which includes many ESL customers, especially
when the items that the localization people
are recommending take very little effort on
our part to do.
-- Janice
***********************************************************
Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with
janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com | this message is the return address
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