atw: Re: Should we give the users what they want?

Seriously Tony, if they can't maintain concentration for more than a few
minutes, or are in a perpetual state of partial attention to ten different
technologies (ie, in thrall of the technology, not the content), and if a
new and asinine language is needed for this audience of booboisies, what
possible paying jobs are they capable of performing?
  **

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Anthony Self
<ASelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> Hi Brian
>
> Are you suggesting that we should abandon the "reader is king" principle,
> and write not for the reader, but for an idealised persona of how we would
> prefer our reader to be? Too bad if our readers can't maintain concentration
> for 10 minutes... suck it in, cut your hair, get a job, and grow up!
>
> And when none of these "new readers" read our manuals (because they've been
> written in an alien language), and turn instead to a peer-generated document
> written/presented in a familiar form, how are we going to find work?
>
> Our job isn't to maintain English standards! (Leave that to Hyacinth
> Bucket!) Ours is to communicate to our readers in a language our readers
> understand.
>
> Tony
>
>
>
> >>> "Brian Clarke" <brianclarke01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 11/03/09 3:32 PM >>>
> Hi Tony,
>
> I do believe that you are falling into the trap that many first year
> undergraduates in the social sciences fall into, of thinking that
> statistics
> tells us what to do. The adage I used was:
> Just because something is, does not mean it ought to be.
>
> When I was a child, I spelled as a child. But, now we are grown up. We have
> learned how to make lasting, adult choices, based on adult criteria. My
> choice is for the richness that is English - not the Krap that is used by
> some unknown percentage of would-be-fashionable children. Noise by the few
> does not equal power to the people. Some of these children may grow up -
> and
> some may actually make adult choices, too.
>
> Regards,
> Brian.
>
>
>
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-- 
Carolyn Hart

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