Re: what to call it?

["Wayne J. Douglass" <wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM>]

At 09:39 AM 1/6/97 -0600, Mitch Berg wrote:
>Three suggestions:
>* Eschew "Document"
>* Ditto any word rooted in "Document"
>* Strangle any management that uses any of the above.
>
While I don't share Mitch's passion regarding "document," I understand his
aversion. In my world (Wayne's World?), documents are source material that
gets transformed into a manual. In technical writing, it's the usual
half-assed material that passes for specifications: memos, architecture
drawings on toilet paper or somebody's white board, marketing wet dreams
about what the product will do, whizbang demos illustrating "proof of
concept," the CEO's Power Point presentation to venture capitalists or
financial analysts. From this dreck writers are expected to produce gilt, if
not gelt.

Think of it this way: birth certificates, diplomas, marriage licenses,
divorce papers, confidential files unearthed through the Freedom of
Information Act, death certificates are documents. David McCullough's book
on Harry Truman is a biography.

--Wayne Douglass

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