Re: Use of "your"

[Jeff Jansen <jsjansen -at- TELEPORT -dot- COM>]

What a ridiculous rule! To me, this is tantamount to writing "the user"
instead of "you." Such language separates the user (hey, it's appropriate
*here*) from the software and therefore alienates him/her, IMHO.

Jeff Jansen | Modest Systems / Portland, Oregon, USA
            | Superior Technical Communication in Ink and Pixels
            | http://www.teleport.com/~jsjansen
            | "What Do You Want Written Today?"

On Wednesday, July 16, 1997 6:37 PM, Kris Olberg
[SMTP:kjolberg -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM] wrote:
> I was taught years ago--too many years, actually--that a writer or
> interface designer should not refer to items as being possessed, such as
in
> "your mail," "your keyboard," "your clients," "your machine," etc.
>
> My questions about this are:
>
> (1) why did we adopt this convention? (like I said, it's been too many
> years for me)
> (2) is this convention still widely practiced? was it ever widely
> practiced?
> (3) why or why not?
>
> Regards...Kris
> -------------------------
> kolberg -at- actamed -dot- com
> kris -at- olberg -dot- com
>
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