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Subject:Re: and then (was: Silly but important to me) From:eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 1 Sep 2004 16:57:13 -0400
bounce-techwr-l-106467 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com wrote on 09/01/2004 04:09:46 PM:
> Just because you are blind doesn't mean that the rest of the world
> cannot see.
You can be blind by being too far OR from being too close.
If you need a 1000X jeweller's loupe to see an inclusion in a diamond does
it lose all value?
The level of grammatical detail being discussed is about as important as a
paint brush bristle stuck in the paint, on the outside of a house up on
the third floor.
The house looks beautiful. Only an obsessive compulsive would worry about
it. The rest of the world wouldn't care. Or is the situation more like
those that will go livid if you dare call their new salmon sweater "pink"?
Not to belittle the role of an editor or deep grammatical knowledge, but
these issues all fall in the bucket of: virtually useless compared to
everything else. If the editor marks it up, I may question it, if they're
cantankerous I'll change it with a shrug (if I have time). If I don't have
the time, it goes to press as-is. If the editor REFUSES to release the doc
and I don't have time, Management will come down on the EDITOR like a ton
of bricks.
When the train is stuck in the yard, the last consideration will be
prescriptive grammar. The PRIMARY consideration is: will the technician
read it just once, perform the task as written, and get the train moving?
If the answer is yes, the document is 99.99999% perfect.
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