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Subject:Re: Humor vs. Tech Pubs From:Mark Forseth <markf -at- MERGE -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 16 Jun 1998 12:41:58 -0500
Humor as a communication technique is great for advertising (refer to gobs
of research in advertising and persuasive comm), lousy for tech pubs (refer
to gobs of research in tech comm).
Generally, one man's humor is another's irritation. In the realm of
tech-pub translations, one man's humor in one culture is another culture's
offense and/or confusion. Humor can also alienate readers within a culture
through regional colloquialism and other intra-cultural subtleties.
Why say in three words what you can say in twenty, through the marvels of
humor? Because no one wants to read any more than they absolutely must to
achieve a means to an end, unless one reads a great piece of fiction or
humor from an established and skilled humor author such as Dave Barry.
Furthermore, wandering from the dry-but-straightforward realm of concision
drives word count up, which drives page count up, which drives printing
costs up, and so on.
For a tech writer to assume that A) they're funny to a global audience and
2) their audience's time is not valuable enough to write succinctly is
arrogant, at best.
While some authors publish "how to" books written with threads of humor
invariably aimed at armchair audiences, who can dispute the professional
efficiency of a well-written, well-organized manual such as an automotive
shop manual to get a job done?
IMHO, a tech writer pining to humor his audience is pursuing a stage, not a
tech-writing career.
I must agree with the dissenters on this topic. Leave humor to the
professionals; advertisers, marketers, comedians, columnists, and social
commentators.
