More usage: "Open" or "Access" web addresses

[Ned Bedinger]

Leonard C. Porrello wrote:
> Exactly. And it's the goal of writing so as not to disrupt the suspension 
 > of disbelief that makes technical writing interesting.

YOW!! Suddenly I find myself walking on eggshells. In hobnail boots. 
This VR nneds some getting adjustment, but it *is* kind of fun.

>The fragility of the metaphor and the shallowness of the suspension of disbelief are intriguing. 

My mind, after years of disappointment in the fragile, shallow, and 
sometimes stale metaphors, has symbolized the whole lash-up as 'damned 
low-bidder crap to work with,'

What kind of things intrigue? The first thing to mind is ideas 
(intrigued by an idea). Then I think of the senses (the smell of 
intrigue, or indeed, an intriguing visual or linguistic metaphor). 
Perhaps my implying the existence of a sense of language is going too 
far, but here it is anyway, a genny-wine unexpurgated Ed Wordsmith 
endorsement that tech writing is spooky compared to the usual HR 
understanding of it as 'arranging shallow, fragile metaphors into 
cut-n-dried procedures.'

Anyway, my job description is :-)

Have fun,

Ned Bedinger
doc at edwordsmith.com


  > -----Original Message-----
> From: Ned Bedinger [mailto:doc at edwordsmith.com] 
> 
> Leonard C. Porrello wrote:
>> Some argue that all language is metaphor. 
>> In fact, it's not dificult to argue that "click" itself is metaphorical.
>> One doesn't click. The "mouse" clicks. To be strictly literal,
>> you'd have to say, "apply pressure to the left-most button on the top
>> of the mouse until you hear a 'click', then release the button."
>> Of course, this begs the question, "does a tree falling in a forest
>> make a noise if there is no one to hear it?" In other words, "does
>> the mouse really 'click', or is the 'click' merely just a human mental 
>> construct?"
> 
> Fortunately, what does matter to language is the mental construct.