RE: Don't say what you CANNOT do in documents

["Cheyne, Andrew" <Andrew -dot- Cheyne -at- vicorp -dot- com>]

I don't think there's a simple, pat answer to that. Ultimately it's up to
the author's judgement. Note that I didn't say "if there are any people at
all that find a new term unacceptable, don't use it." Perhaps my post was a
little brief - I don't want to labour this issue - but what I meant to imply
was that the writer should consider these people in the choice of words.
There's often a compromise, I'll happily concede that; it's rarely possible
to pitch a piece of writing exactly to the taste of every reader. 

/a

-----Original Message-----
From: John Posada [mailto:JPosada -at- isogon -dot- com]
Sent: 21 April 2004 18:20
To: Cheyne, Andrew; TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Don't say what you CANNOT do in documents


>If a word or usage is "becoming accepted", that 
>means to me that there are still some people to 
>whom it's not yet acceptable

At what point do we satisfy to those who won't keep up with change at
the expense of others who find the "correct" way strange.

I'm sure there are those out there that know that datum is the correct
form. How many readers, on seeing that usage, will have a mental pause.

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
Isogon Corporation
http://www.isogon.com
  "Realizing Your Business Goals 
   Through Software Asset Management"

-----Original Message-----
Subject: RE: Don't say what you CANNOT do in documents

Not really. I'd say that it was getting into the issue of writing in the
way that most of your readership find most easy to read. In any case, it
isn't separate from linguistic drift because it's the difference in the
rates of linguistic drift in the UK and US that causes this situation. 

My personal view is that in technical writing it's safer to be a little
conservative about adoting new usages and neologisms. If a word or usage
is "becoming accepted", that means to me that there are still some
people to whom it's not yet acceptable. 

-----Original Message-----
Subject: RE: Don't say what you CANNOT do in documents

Well, this is getting into the issue of UK vs. US English, which is
separate and distinct from the issue of linguistic drift, which is what
John seemed to be getting at.

-----Original Message-----
Subject: RE: Don't say what you CANNOT do in documents

"Criteria" used as a singular sounds very wrong in the UK. Wrong enough
to undermine the authority of the document, I'd say.

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