RE: English variant in Telecom materials

["Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>]

I would proofread British-English documents in my head that were written for
*me* as the audience.  I would read and interpret the document as though it
were written in American-English and make appropriate translations from
British to American.  If I, as an American, am the audience, then the
document should be written for me in American-English.  

When I read British documents that are understandably British, then I don't
get annoyed because the audience of those documents is not specifically
American.  It is rather insulting for a writer to write a document for a
specific audience, like an American audience, and then write that document
in a dialect or style that is not the style that the audience expects.  So,
it's annoying.

The second part of your comment about a non-American reader being annoyed by
a document written for an American audience is irrelevant.  Writing for the
audience is important and avoidance of insulting or annoying the audience by
writing in the dialect of the audience is a part of writing for the
audience.

This of course does not by any stretch mean that British-English is
annoying, but a document written specifically for an American audience in
British-English would be annoying, just like a document written specifically
for British audience in American-English would be annoying.  

If it is true that technology documents are written in American-English as a
de facto standard as Moshe Kruger states, then it should really be the case
that the audience of those documents does accept that the documents are
written in American-English, otherwise the documentation could be annoying.

Lauren
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com 
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On 
> Behalf Of Stuart Burnfield
> Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 8:05 PM
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: RE: English variant in Telecom materials
> 
> Why would you be annoyed? If the documents are written in British 
> English, then British spelling and usage would be correct in that 
> context, so what you're doing isn't proofreading.
> 
> What if one of your non-American readers sent feedback saying 
> she'd just 
> proofread your manual, was very annoyed, had highlighted all the US 
> spellings, refused to finish reading it, and so on?
> 
> Stuart
> 
> Lauren said:
>  > I would have a hard time dealing with instructions written in
>  > British-English because the support documents that I read are
>  > normally American-English. Not that I wouldn't be able to read
>  > the documents, but I would get very annoyed and proofread the
>  > document in my head while I read, so I might get too annoyed
>  > and never finish the document,
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