Re: Pet peeves

["Rollings, Gill" <WGILLR -at- WOK-MSMAIL-GW -dot- ISL -dot- COM>]

Karen Steele hates long words used in place of short ones:  I agree with
that and I'd add clumsy words used instead of longer but clearer phrases.
 The kind of thing I have in mind is

'hospitalisation' instead of 'being admitted to hospital'

'achieve referencability across [customer] sites' instead of 'be able to
call on [customer] sites to provide references'

plus a lot of other words with '-isation' or '-ability' tacked on to the
end.

Yvonne DeGraw mentioned 'unique' used when something isn't unique.  Just as
horrid is 'totally unique' (so what is 'partially unique' supposed to
mean?).

And how about 'a major new initiative'?  Redundancy?  Tautology?  Inability
to use a dictionary?

Most of this stuff comes out of Marketing, bless 'em  :-).  I often receive
text to check before it gets published and although it can be interesting
(and I get a special preview of all the news), it can also remind me of
wading through treacle as I try to work out what the writer is trying to say
with all those weird words.

Which leads on to the thread about knowledge being power and groups keeping
their knowledge to themselves.   I think a new message is called for...

Gill Rollings, Technical Writer, Internet Systems Ltd.
gill -dot- rollings -at- isl -dot- com