RE: regarding the pardoning of her french

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher5 -at- cox -dot- net>]

Thanks for your faith in me, Lisa! <g>

In truth, It's a customer story written by the customer with
"help" from the marketing department. My only job was to
give it a light grammar edit and to format the sucker.

And you're right when you say that "a la <anything>" is
usually inappropriate for tech docs; I wouldn't use it in
my writing, anyway. But in the context of the customer
story, and given that when marketing gives me something
technical to edit I usually send it back with so many
mark-ups that you can no longer read the silly thing,
this is my chance to soothe the bruised egos and let
the piece go to press with the voice the customer gave it.

...but I certainly appreciate everyone's concern!  <g>
-Sue Gallagher
(who recalls looking at track changes after editing the first 
press release this particular vp of marketing wrote and seeing 
only 3 black words sitting in the middle of the second para --
I'd changed *everything* else!)


-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-100838 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-100838 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of Lisa
Wright

I'm thinking that no one raised the question because we know that Sue's 
a smart cookie who knows her stuff. I at least figured that she knows 
that it is certainly not going to be a word that one would commonly use 
in a white paper or other technical document, but that she must have 
determined it's appropriate to the tone. Or that, in fact, it was a 
phrase such as a la carte. I would most of the time question its usage 
in a technical document, but I can envision situations where it would be 
appropriate.

Mark L. Levinson opined:
I think that the use of "a la" to mean "in the manner of",
outside such complete French phrases as "a la mode" and
"a la carte", is shoddy.  I wouldn't expect to see it in
technical writing.


diotima wrote:
I'm surprised that no one asked sue why she was using a french phrase



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