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Assuming that Mourdock was speaking from a text, his faux pas exemplifies how important it is to hire good writers. A clear and simple statement--such as "Every baby is a gift from God"--would have been a hard to mistake, twist, or misunderstand.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Ken Stitzel
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 9:16 AM
To: Tech Whirl
Subject: Re: author / audience responsibility
Old people like me remember John Sununu's 1991 classic excuse for violating White House travel rules (which he should have known as Chief of Staff), "Obviously, some mistakes were made." The passive voice conveniently evades naming the person who made the mistakes.
It's always ironically humorous to see the twisting of language by someone trying to evade and shift blame....
"I am a much more humble person this morning because so many people
> mistook, twisted, came to misunderstand the points i was trying to make".
>
> I couldn't help thinking how that way of putting it seemed to put the
> blame on others failure to understand rather than on his own to
> communicate, and just how invalid that defence would be if he were a
> technical writer!
>
> Best
>
> Phil
>
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