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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:John Garison <john -at- garisons -dot- com> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:03:24 -0500
Back in the day, we not only had to define, but explain how to do
certain new terms and actions like Click, Double-click, Right-click,
Drag, Drop, and Mouse-over. The same thing happened 75 years ago when
the phone company went away from operators handling every call to
customers being able to dial their own (using, gasp, a rotary dial) and
they had to introduce new terms and teach people what a dial tone was,
what a busy signal was, and what a ring tone was.
Are these jargon? At one time they were. Now they are common parlance.
We are still in the early days of computing yet, and new technology
appears almost daily. Some of it is more widespread than others. I would
venture to say that some of Mr. Pogue's (let's follow the NYT Style
Guide here) complaints are valid, others (dialog) are borderline. Any
new technology is going to either require new terms or re-use existing
terms often in a way that is equally confusing. We need to adapt. We
need to go through a learning process where outliers have some trouble
with new words and features.
So how do we handle this?
Rule one: Know your audience. We as technical authors can usually assume
a higher standard of expertise in our readers than Mr. Pogue can in his
readership. He writes for a general public audience. many of his
readers, but not all, will know what dialog means. In the audiences I
write for, they all know. If they didn't. I'd consider some sort of
online glossary of terms where they could find out what I mean.
It's that, or this scenario:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it
means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many
different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
/Through the Looking Glass./
My 2¢,
John Garison
Stuart Burnfield said the following on 2/2/2009 4:11 AM:
> I don't really see that. I'm talking about the case where a
> company has decided to invent or adapt a small set of terms,
> presumably for marketing reasons. If they have a bunch of
> products called SnogWrite, SnogDraw and SnogHelp, reams
> of brochures about how they're all SnogTastic!(TM), and
> posters on every bus stop in the country saying "Snog Me!",
> do you go along with snoglets or do you argue that applets
> is the industry-standard term?
>
>
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