RE: Information architects?

[Mailing List <mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

> Geoff Hart opined:
[...]
> The thing to remember about labels is that like all other words, 
> they're tools for communication. Speaking as an editor, I'd gently 
> remind you that not everyone--including writers--uses these tools 
> particularly well. But those who use the tools precisely communicate 
> things that the duffers can't communicate.

I used to think that, but now I'm not so sure.

It's certainly true that those of us who can see certain 
distinctions and have the tools to enunciate them are 
able to do so, but if the general audience has lost the 
knowledge and tools necessary to understand the distinctions, 
then can we really be said to have communicated them? 
(For that matter, can someone who can't understand the 
description of a distinction be said to perceive the 
distinction itself?)

I mean, it's all very well that I can write in a precise 
manner, using words that convey fine shades of meaning, 
and that you can pick up every last one (and vice versa, 
I hope)... but neither of us is the target audience for 
our usual professional scribblings. 

At about this point, somebody is already frantically waving 
their hands in the background, looking for an opportunity 
to chime in with "blah, blah, commandment, blah, know your 
audience, blah, write to your audience".
But that's my point being missed.

Many of us now realize that if we write anywhere near our 
well-rounded capabilities, we'll be talking over the heads 
of much of our audience (not in here, on the list, nor on 
CE-L, but our workaday audience "out there"). The technical 
terms and concepts might be known and understood, but certain 
ways of talking about them -- certain words and phrases that 
used to be perfectly good (and ARE still perfectly good 
among a discerning audience) -- no longer carry distinctions 
and are now considered interchangeable with other words.

We can mention comprise/compose (as they just did on CE-L 
this morning). We can talk about little things like "e.g." 
and "i.e." that I learned in gradeschool, but which I'm 
now told are too esoteric for manuals and help that will 
mostly be read by engineers and technical sorts.

Any of us could go on and on about various bits of dumming 
down, and I'm sure the equivalent is occurring in other 
languages, even as we speak... er, write.

A related point, I was going to acknowledge that there are 
several PhD holders in this list, so there's no shortage 
of well educated sorts, but then I've been known to help 
PhD candidates with their writing, since their education 
was too narrow and technical, it seems, to cover stuff that 
I acquired during substantially less formal instruction.
And, before that person waving the hand pipes up again, 
I'm not referring to PhD candidates with English as a 
second language... well, maybe second to C++ or bio-speak, 
but not second to French or Urdu. You know what I mean.

Oh, crap.  Was that a rant?  Sorry.  :-)

Kevin

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