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Subject:Re: A little respect for "unvalidated" From:Kathleen MacDowell <kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com> To:"McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> Date:Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:36:34 -0500
It's interesting how many imprecise terms gain credence in different
segments of business and industry and even in academics.
The funniest thing about this is that the actual "definition" (if we could
call it that) varies from one discipline or segment to another. It leads to
a lot of slop when one tries to untangle a technical explanation provided by
someone who uses a lot of such jargon.
Personally, I like to stick with unambiguous explanations.
Kathleen
On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 3:08 PM, McLauchlan, Kevin <
Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
>
>
> Robert Lauriston suggested:
> >
> > "If your device works perfectly, but your customers can't use it
> > correctly ...": in other words, you tested the device to validate its
> > usability and it failed, right?
> >
> > Why not just use the standard English "not validated" or "not
> > yet validated"?
>
> And, as in my industry, when there are some that we just don't bother to
> validate? Or rather, we don't go to the time (from several months, to more
> than a year) and considerable expense of submitting them to third-party labs
> that validate them against a government standard...?
>
> They're still "validated" by Engineering Test group (formerly called...
> wait for it... Product Validation), and also by QA before they ship, but
> they might be an interim or niche version and thus not worth the trouble to
> get 'em certified as validated against the government standard.
>
> "Validated and not validated HSMs are functionally identical and are
> designed and built to the same performance and security standards." I
> dunno. Sounds clunky to me.
>
>
> The "not validated" could also become scan-error-inducing if it occurred at
> an inconvenient physical location on a page.
>
> I wonder how many people would ever be confused by "un" in front of a word
> that they knew.
>
> Is it that I only imagine "un" to be a standard, common English prefix,
> well-known for its meaning and its effect on any word it precedes?
>
>
> - Kevin
>
>
>
>
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--
Kathleen MacDowell
www.writefortheuser.com
kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com
kathleen -dot- eamd -at- gmail -dot- com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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