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RE: Lingua Franca Today

Subject: RE: Lingua Franca Today
From: kelley <kwalker2 -at- gte -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 14:08:48 -0500

At 09:03 AM 1/15/02 -0500, Marguerite Krupp wrote:

I have written about BGP, and while this paragraph does capture the essence of the protocol's function. I would suggest, however, that any phrase that calls attention to itself, as most non-English phrases in an
English-language document would do, is an unnecessary distraction. The
executive in Kelley's original post stopped reading for the meaning of the
report and started thinking about that particular phrase.

well, my mistake was to provide context/background that distracted. or, perhaps, the mistake was not to provide enough context/ background in order to forestall the concern that 'lingua franca' is inappropriate for technical writing. were this technical writing, i'd agree with you. it's not technical writing, however.

also, as i noted in a lengthier post, the writing is supposed to challenge. the point _is_ to force the reader to stop and slow down and think. this sometimes requires 'distracting' readers. it's a technique used in didatic writing.

there is an entire literature on this approach and, for those interested, i'll try to carve out time to provide a bibliography. with my schedule, though, it's likely to be April!


kelley, who relishes the humor in this discussion of why lingua franca is not considered part of our common English language! :):):)

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RE: Lingua Franca Today: From: Marguerite Krupp

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