atw: Re: Censoring humour in translation (STIR)

Janice Gelb: You wrote:
> On  9/12/08 11:45 AM, Peter Martin wrote:
>
>> The trouble with this is that I find some perfectly straight forward, 
>> non-humorous and
>> otherwise apparently inoffensive material in some manuals is taken to be 
>> "stupid and
>> distracting" by some reviewers.     For example, from some readers / 
>> reviewers I've
>> had in the past, I've had similar comments about sections which contained a 
>> simplified
>> overview of the topic. These readers didn't want overview material, or 
>> thought it was
>> unnecessary, stupid and distracting, that it led to repetition or "over-
>> simplification", and should be just cut out.   This is just one section of 
>> the
>> readership. (After a while, I think I learnt how to pick which people would 
>> say this.)
>> Others thought having the overview was the best feature of the new / revised 
>> document.
>> So where does that leave us ?     If this happens without humour, why worry 
>> about it
>> happening with humour ?
>>
>
> Because those readers can skip the overview material and go to the main text. 
> However,
> readers of the main text that includes humor that they find distracting, 
> annoying, or
> offensive can't go to alternate text that doesn't include the humor.
>
> Also, items that are boring are not as personally distracting or disturbing 
> as items
> that actively cause a reaction such as disdain or cultural confusion or 
> offense. One
> joke that a reader finds stupid or distracting can undermine their opinion of 
> the rest
> of the text, whereas a boring introduction or diagram that an individual 
> might find
> unnecessary is not going to invoke the same emotional reaction to the rest of 
> the text
> imho.
>

Ok. That's easy.  I'll just put all the weak humour in the overview section.
Problem solved.


-Peter M
 peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
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