This comic should amuse #writers. I did some research on the #etymology of the cited #homonyms and wrote this to my lit friend. My thoughts, anyway, which may amuse ewe:
It is obvious from an orthographic perspective that many sounds represented by groups of letters in English ought be pronounced differently and emphasized, putting aside that Germanic and French derivatives are also different. Problem is that human hearing and blurring of sounds due to regional accents mean we do a lot of error checking so accurate sounds don't always matter. As such, we have homonyms which shouldn't logically exist because we learn language by hearing not reading. But humans aren't logical (and are lazy speakers) and language is living. Scent = sss sen t. Sense = sen sss with a weak seh at the end. Scent without emphasis on the introductory s sound, sent, and cent are homonyms. Scent is from the French and cent from the German. Sent is the past tense of send so doesn't count.
I was building some flatpack furniture the other day (my life is so glamorous) when I came across an interesting example of how not to write technical documentation. Drill a hole in part A and insert part B once you have ensured part C has been aligned after its connection to A. Most people can […]
I was building some flatpack furniture the other day (my life is so glamorous) when I came across an interesting example of how not to write technical documentation.
Drill a hole in part A and insert part B once you have ensured part C has been aligned after its connection to A.
Most people can handle reading a whole sentence to figure out what's going on. But, after a tiring day of building, it is somewhat annoying having to juggle instructions into actions.
Most readers will assume that instructions are written in linear time. Do this, then that. But that example is non-linear. What it is trying to say is:
Connect part C with part A. Then align part C and part A. Then drill the hole in part A. Then insert part B into part A.
It is slightly less interesting writing. But it presents all the actions in the order they need to be taken.
I see this temporally-mixed anti-pattern all the time. A typical example of this in technical documentation is:
Select Print from the File menu.
A simpler, clearer, and less ambiguous way of writing that is:
Open the File menu. Select Print.
Another similar example of confusing writing is:
Go to File → Print → Settings if you need to change the paper size.
Again, this places cognitive burden on the reader. If they want to understand if the instruction is relevant to them, they have to read the entire sentence. When faced with dozens of sentences, this can become confusing. The solution is:
If you want to do X, then do Y...
Immediately the reader knows that they can skip this sentence because they don't want to do X.
As technical writers, we sometimes want to craft eloquent prose. We long for glorious and intricate sentences. We tire of the monotony of linear writing.
Tough. We need to get over ourselves. Go write that epic fantasy novel you've been thinking about. The job of a technical writer isn't to entertain, enliven, or delight the reader. The job is to give them instructions in an easy to follow format, reducing the amount of cognitive burden they have, and making it quick to find the information they need.
Have you ever wondered why recovery sounds like you're covering something again? It's just coincidence!
Recover goes back to Latin "recuperare", and is ultimately related to English "receive". Moreso than receive, however, recover retains the repetition sense of the re- prefix: it's about taking something back again, whether that is an object, or your health, or whatever. Covering things has nothing to do with it.
Canadian word nerds, rejoice. Two decades after the last Canada-specific dictionary was published, a new one is on its way. Editors Canada has taken on the project, with John Chew, head of the North American Scrabble Players Association, as editor-in-chief. Quill and Quire reports that the letter Q, a small portion of which is online now, could be released this summer. While lexicographers usually start with M, Chew plumped for Q because it includes Indigenous and Inuktitut words and many medical and scientific words. Here's more.
'Librarian Andrew Gray has made a “very surprising” discovery. He analyzed five million scientific studies published last year and detected a sudden rise in the use of certain words, such as meticulously (up 137%), intricate (117%), commendable (83%) and meticulous (59%). [...] The explanation for this rise: tens of thousands of researchers are using [...] LLMs tools to write their studies or at least “polish” them.'
Does your language use the terms staccato and crescendo outside of strictly musical contexts? According to today’s breakfast table discussion they might be much rarer in metaphorical use in Finnish compared to English or Swedish. Esp. in English it is fairly common to describe something happening in a staccato rhythm. #language
A girl at school felt ill, and had to go home. Of course, we need to establish contact with the family before we release a kid, so I got her to ring home. She rang a contact, showed me the screen on her phone, to let me see who she was ringing, and the word on the screen was one I didn't recognise.
She finished the conversation, and I asked her about the word. Arabic for pappa, she told me (transliterated into the Latin alphabet). So I asked her about the word for mama, and so on. The conversation lasted all of a minute, but it was as if this girl grew a couple of inches -- a teacher was interested in HER background. She left smiling, despite feeling ill.
Arabic is my no means a small language, but it is where I live, and so the same mechanisms this opinion piece describes ("You must change to please us.") are all too often apparent from day to day.
Show a little curiosity, rather. Learn a little from those whose perspactive is different from yours. And above all, respect other people and their backgrounds -- they are as valuable as you think you are.
Concerning #grammar & #spelling, I no longer adhere to #prescriptivism as I once did. #Descriptivism dovetails far better with my acquired understanding of language as a living, growing, metamorphosing creature that will not be contained or constrained by any rules we humans try to place upon it.
However.
Choices such as
orientate
conversate
nucular
alot
realitor
michievious
definatly
apart of
will never fail to make me wither away a little on the inside.
"What does it feel like to speak your primary language in an accent from your secondary one? I would later find out."
In today's new Longreads essay, Montserrat Andrée Carty writes about growing up with different languages and cultures—and embracing different versions of herself.
I love that the French word for a large public lobby or the entrance hall to a big public building (such as a train station, courthouse, city hall, etc.) is "salle des pas perdus"—literally "the room of lost steps"—because people tend to pace around a lot in those places, so their steps are essentially lost, wasted, going nowhere.
As a kid, my sister misheard that term and called it "la salle des pains perdus"—"the room of French toast"—which does sound like a much better place to hang out. I think she was on to something. #language