Re: author / audience responsibility

Subject: Re: author / audience responsibility
From: jackdeland -at- comcast -dot- net
To: Ken Stitzel <kstitzel -at- symplified -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:55:13 +0000 (UTC)

Older people like me remember the phrase from the Watergate era - I think it was either Haldeman or Erlichman.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Stitzel" <kstitzel -at- symplified -dot- com>
To: "Tech Whirl" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:16:16 PM
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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Re: author / audience responsibility: From: Ken Stitzel

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