re: I had say it because I was afraid no one else would.

Subject: re: I had say it because I was afraid no one else would.
From: "Crimmin, Peter" <Peter -dot- Crimmin -at- nuance -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 11:57:54 -0500

Seems to me this thread discusses two issues:

* The policing of jargon. Who gets to decide?
* Quality of the writing. Is the jargon appropriate to the audience?

This implies the following matrix with regard to jargon:

* High quality writing - well-advised jargon used with intention.
* Quality writing - well-advised jargon used without intention.
(Lucky choices.)
* Mediocre quality writing - questionable jargon used with or
without intention.
* Poor quality writing - ill-advised jargon.

Writers need to filter jargon as it arrives from various sources.
Marketing organizations insist on branding, new technologies require
public-domain vocabularies, and in-the-trenches engineers contribute
jargon that might be idiosyncratic and esoteric.


Steven Jong stevefjong at comcast.net

Stuart Burnfield wrote:

> even if ["fraudster"]
> it were a made-up word, your company has every right to
> invent it and the product manager is entitled to make sure

> that its usage in your manual and the marketing material
> reinforce each other.

I didn't disagree at the time, and I'm not disagreeing now. But you do
realize, don't you, that you've just ceded the entire jargon argument?

Any bizarre coinage, spelling, usage, or capitalization can similarly
be claimed as a deliberate invention. Yikes!
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