John Garison wrote this on Techwr-l today in response to Stuart Burnfield, who wrote:
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?
Back in the day, we not only had to define, but explain how to docertain new terms and actions like Click, Double-click, Right-click,Drag, Drop, and Mouse-over. The same thing happened 75 years ago whenthe phone company went away from operators handling every call tocustomers being able to dial their own (using, gasp, a rotary dial) andthey 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 technologyappears almost daily. Some of it is more widespread than others. I wouldventure to say that some of Mr. Pogue's (let's follow the NYT StyleGuide here) complaints are valid, others (dialog) are borderline. Anynew technology is going to either require new terms or re-use existingterms often in a way that is equally confusing. We need to adapt. Weneed to go through a learning process where outliers have some troublewith new words and features.
So how do we handle this?
Rule one: Know your audience. We as technical authors can usually assumea higher standard of expertise in our readers than Mr. Pogue can in hisreadership. He writes for a general public audience. many of hisreaders, but not all, will know what dialog means. In the audiences Iwrite for, they all know. If they didn't. I'd consider some sort ofonline 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, "itmeans just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.""The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so manydifferent things.""The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."/Through the Looking Glass./
I enjoy reading the posts from Sarah Stegall, a member of Techwr-L. Recently, it seems like she has hit the nail on the head regarding issues that arise for discussion. When Stuart Burnfield commented
Merriam-Webster has an entry for "fraudster", but even if it were a made-up word, your company has every right to invent it
Sarah jumped in with this rant:
No, it does not. The English language does not belong to one company, it belongs to all of us. No one person or body of persons has the right to arbitrarily re-define words, make up words, or change words. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING that I have encountered in more than a dozen years in this business pisses me off more than the arrogance of marketing departments that freely and obliviously play hob with a thousand year old language--of which they are, largely, ignorant.
I have risked my job more than once, refusing point blank to mangle my native tongue in order to suit the whims of a marketing director who can't even spell. He does not have the right to re-configure this language. If anyone does, poets do. Nobody else.
Don't bother arguing with me on this point. On anything else, we can agree to disagree, but on this one I am not rational.
Sarah
Locked, loaded and ready to rock
The passion is admirable.
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