Re: Injecting a little whimsy into grey text

["Janet Swisher" <jmswisher -at- gmail -dot- com>]

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 7:52 AM, Cathy Arthur <catherine -dot- arthur -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>>
>> Re: Injecting a little whimsy into grey text
>
>
> Hi,
>
> In our group, developers are free to supply an unusual word to include in
> the the text of their feature. So far, once developer in particular enjoys
> this and we've managed to include malodorous, cabal, trundle, and chunky
> bacon. We do use these in parts of the text that are not critical, of
> course, since a fair proportion of the audience does not speak English as a
> first language. I see these as being something of an Easter egg, and I do
> know that some of our readers (who are internal) enjoy finding them. One of
> our VPs went to read the docs just to find one. As a writer, I enjoy the
> challenge of working them in. It is also, I think, a means of strengthening
> the connection between the dev and writing teams.


"Chunky bacon" is a reference to my favorite example of humorous
technical communication:
http://poignantguide.net/ruby/chapter-3.html

(The text is quite good, but you can just read the cartoons to get to
the chunky bacon.)


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