RE: Need Your Opinions re Simplified English (Can I quote you?)

[Richard Lippincott <richard -dot- lippincott -at- ae -dot- ge -dot- com>]

Gary Clark wrote:

	>Here's a concept... 'simplified French' or how about "German for
	>non-Germans?'

Sounds like a good idea to me.

On the other hand...

	>IF SAFETY IS THE ISSUE, SPEND THE MONEY TO PUT IT INTO THE USER'S
NATIVE
	>LANGUAGE IN THE FIRST PLACE. SPEND LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY! AFTER
ALL, IT'S
	>AS SAFETY ISSUE, ISN'T IT. (Yes, shouting!)

Good idea in theory, I agree 100% with the concept...I just don't see any
practical way to do it in my case. Why? Because I don't know the native
language of my users. Not only do I not know what their native language is
today, I don' t know who tomorrow's customer is. And I doubt that I'm alone.


If "I don't know my customer's native language" sounds absurd, let me
explain.

I work for Lockheed-Martin. We're a small group, about 15 people, all tech
pubs, and we're under contract to write jet engine maintenance manuals for
GE Aircraft Engines. Specifically, my focus is writing Service Bulletins for
the CF-34 turbofan jet engine. The CF-34 is used on regional passenger jets
manufactured by Bombardier (Montreal Canada), Embraer (Brazil), and
Fairchild-Dornier (Germany). (BTW, for those who have never heard the term,
"Service Bulletins" are roughly analogous to software patch release notes.
They go out fast, they're smaller than the standard engine maintenance
manuals, and there is always an urgent issue that drives their creation.)

So, what language? "Easy answer: French, Portuguese, and German" you might
say. Not so fast....

Bombardier, Embraer, and Fairchild-Dornier sell their airplanes (with GE
CF-34 engines attached) to airlines all around the world. Big airlines.
Small airlines. Medium sized airlines. And the funny thing is, we don't know
who those airlines are. We writers here in the LockMart office are on the
tail end of the information chain. We literally are not privy to the names
of the final customers. Bombardier, Embraer, and Fairchild-Dornier don't
feel an obligation to report every customer name back to GEAE. The ones they
do report go to program leaders....who -may- tell the GE pubs managers...who
-may- tell us...if they think it's something we need to know to do our jobs.
The most solid information I've seen on the airline customers was spotting a
Bombardier RJ on the runway at an airport while I was flying out to
Nashville last month. 

And what about tomorrow? I can work today on a service bulletin that is tied
to an engine GE will ship next week...which will end up on some airplane
destined for an airline who hasn't even placed the order yet. What language
should I translate this bulletin into?  They -will- need a copy for their
records.

And even knowing the airline may not be a help. Lufthansa? Doesn't Germany
have a lot of "guest workers" from foreign countries? A service bulletin in
German isn't any closer to a Turkish guest worker's native language than one
in English. 

My customer (GEAE) is two steps away from the final person who will be using
the docs I write. Native language? I'm stumped. So it looks like English is
the only way we can do this. If there is a better suggestion, I'd be
interested in hearing it. Hey, there may be a promotion in there for me if
it works.

--Rick Lippincott
  Saugus, MA


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