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What's a cliche, anyway? do I like this guy? (take II)
Subject:What's a cliche, anyway? do I like this guy? (take II) From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:Peter Sturgeon <prsturgeon -at- yahoo -dot- com>, TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:43:34 -0500
Peter Sturgeon wonders: <<True--we'll go out of our way to apologize
for a friend's slips, and pounce on the most innocent mis-speak of an
enemy. So if we're already pre-disposed to disliking a boss, colleague,
whoever, we're always hunting evidence to support that dislike, and
ignoring evidence that would undermine our negative opinion. So how do
we guard against this, as professionals and as people?>>
In short, how do we evaluate things objectively? In practice, it's
never completely possible to be objective. All we can reasonably hope
to do is ask and answer one simple question: "Does the current wording
work?" If it does, perhaps it's not important that it's a cliché. After
all, there's that whole "Open the X menu" or "Click the Y button"
series of clichés. They work, so why bother striving for something more
innovative that doesn't work nearly as well?
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