Re: Political Correctness (Was Re: Master/Slave)

[Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com]

>This questioning is less a matter of being held
>hostage to some nebulous conspiracy enforcing Political Correctness and
more a
>matter of writers maintaining an awareness of who their audience is and
how
>that audience will react to the language choices the writer makes.

This, of course, explains why it is that the writer in question is asking
us, a group that is quite demonstrably *not* a member of the audience being
written for, whether a term is confusing/offputting for an audience that we
may or may not be acquainted with.

It's the age-old question of whether language is prescriptive or
descriptive, and your choice of either of those two options will dictate
your choice of whether to try to move to new terminology or remain with the
terminology that has been standard in the industry for years.

It's been my experience that the biggest advocates for changing an
industry's terminology are outside of the industry. People who are already
in the industry have dealt with the issues the terminology raises, for the
most part, or they wouldn't be there.

Am I saying that terminology should never change? Of course not. But I'm
firmly in the "descriptive" camp. I'll change my terminology when I hear
the people I'm writing for change their terminology. My job is not to
promote social well-being, it's to communicate clearly and effectively the
properties of a machine. I write about what *is*, not what *might be*.


Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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