Hard News: A Full Sense of Nationhood
509 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 7 8 9 10 11 … 21 Newer→ Last
-
-
(Thanks for reminding me about that, by the way. I'm just printing it out so I can have it displayed in a prominent place.)
-
Thank you. I shall tattoo it on my left forearm.
-
Gio, macrons are part of the officially supported orthographic system for Ma:ori, but other systems are also possible. (The one I've just used is completely non-standard for that particular language, but is used by linguists to signify vowel length.) Not marking the length distinction at least in some way is certainly a spelling error, akin to leaving off "silent e" from the ends of English words, and with similar effects on meaning. That'd be a linguistic issue, not a cultural issue. But not marking the length distinction specifically by using a macron isn't in itself a "cultural awareness" issue, so much as merely a deliberate choice (perhaps forced by technological limits) to follow another convention.
You are right that ignoring the length distinction can't be called a "mistake" if the omission is done deliberately. And if it is deliberate, then that may be down to lack of cultural awareness. But you can't always tell that just by looking at the finished product on the page or screen.
-
MISSING MACRONS AREN'T A SPELLING MISTAKE. It's a decision you've made not to be bothered about a linguistic difference that you are not capable of appreciating. It shows lack of cultural awareness and respect to say that we should just ignore the damn things in the name of ease of communication.
And it can also make communication harder. Chinese, for example, is a language where a minor (and to my ear, nearly inaudible) change in inflexion can totally change the meaning of what's being said. And I'd imagine in trade or diplomatic circles a trivial transcription error can have pretty damn serious consequences -- as well as being culturally insensitive etc.
So do spelling mistakes, come to that.
-
Ben:
From
So long as the meaning is adequately conveyed, or can be easily found out, there's a lot to be said for just getting a document out, however many technical typos there are in it.
to
You're well within your rights to demand explanation of what is unclear in the bill
you seem to be mistakenly thinking that the onus is on the reader to discover the writer's meaning.
In any context, a writer must think about their readers' needs, and write accordingly. Your concern, however, seems to be with the writer's needs.
The reader is well within their rights to not have to demand an explanation of what is unclear, nor to 'easily' find out what the writer wanted to convey. This is not pedantry or being picky. It's simple common sense.
If you, as a writer, want to convey something, the onus is on you to convey it as clearly as possible. If you can't be bothered doing that, why would you expect anyone to bother reading it?
-
Either way, it's got bugger all to do with spelling mistakes.
-
Sorry, that was meant to follow on from linger's post.
-
Thank you. I shall tattoo it on my left forearm.
I have an imaginary (and very short) list of people not to engage with tattooed on my right forearm. One day, it may turn out that keystrokes are limited to a very large but finite number and I shall regret the ones I completely wasted.
Anyway, I'm supposed to be revising a bunch of help files written by Fluffy McWordy to make them eaiser to read, because there is no moral obligation on anybody to work to read something. Like an awful lot of people here, clear and precise communication is my job. It's probably going to come up in conversation sometimes.
-
gio, are you getting angry because you can't understand my point or you think I don't understand yours?
You're saying that deliberately refusing to use macrons when actually writing in Maori in a formal document that is meant to be used by many people, and has a long preparation time and multiple reviews, is culturally insensitive? If so, I agree.
Now, do you understand that I'm not even talking about the writer? I'm talking about the reader, and what responsibilities they have?
-
I wonder if Ben's not being ask to justify something a little different from what he's in fact saying?
I understood him to mean that there's a threshold that, on the one side, permits minor errors where meaning is clear and, on the other, does not because precision is critical e.g. official advice and IRD correspondence.
At the risk of being a blog whore, Stephen Fry's quaintly named podgram addressed this point as I've transcribed here but the salient passage is this:
There's all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynn Truss and John Humphries than to write poems, love letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs. Shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings.
But do they bubble and froth and slobber and careen with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm and tickle those they talk too? Do they? I doubt it, they're too farting busy sneering at a green grocer's less than perfect use of the apostrophe. Well sod them to Hades. They think they're guardians of language; they're no more guardians of language than the kennel club is the guardians of dog-kind.
-
And in case anyone's interested, along the lines of the massive dope plants (I'm seeing a very strange version of Jack and the Beanstalk there), genuine mistakes we've seen writers make over and over. In every case, it's perfectly obvious what the writer meant .
Compare the following sentences:
Ghet is coming to. - Ghet has been knocked unconscious, and is now waking up.
Ghet is coming too. - *cough* really, the less said about that the better, I think. -
I'm talking about the reader, and what responsibilities they have?
A reader has no responsibilities whatsoever. They almost always don't have to read what you've written, and certainly don't have to work to understand what you've written.
If there's an indication that the writer's primary consideration was to 'just get the document out', a good proportion of your readers will stop right there. That's your responsibility, not theirs. They have not failed as readers. You have failed as a writer.
-
you seem to be mistakenly thinking that the onus is on the reader to discover the writer's meaning.
And you seem to be asserting the contrary? That the onus is entirely on the writer?
I disagree. A great deal of communication is about trying to understand the other person's intent. If it is not well conveyed, that's the writer's fault, sure, but if you deliberately refuse to make an effort, that's your fault. Arbitrary rules being used as such an excuse, where no actual meaning was really lost, are a particularly annoying example of that.
In Craig's case, absolutely the onus is on him to go back to the IRD and ask what he doesn't get, because otherwise he'll be paying late, getting fined, etc. Perhaps he could hold their letter up in a court and show that the bill was not clear, but the absolute first question the other lawyer is going to ask is "Did you then seek clarification?". And whether he wins or not it will cost him.
-
Paul: the original context, I think, was B Jones' innocent enquiry as to why so many government and educational web pages have either umlauts or some sort of encoding problem. Possibly owing to the lateness of the hour when I first saw Ben's take on demands for typgraphical/orthographical/linguistic/stylistic/syntactic/malolactic* correctness, I thought that was the context he had in mind too.
Ben: it is at last clear to me what you're talking about, but I've been confused, because I got the impression you were arguing with a position espoused by someone in this thread, rather than introducing a new observation. I agree with you too.
* sentences are better when infused a note of butterscotch.
/trots off to make coffee and think about SMS gateways.
-
A reader has no responsibilities whatsoever
I disagree. There are a lot of responsibilities, like understanding the language, familiarity with the content domain, and maybe, just maybe, actually giving a damn about the message itself. Failure of any of these responsibilities is not on the writer. They don't have to translate every document they write into every possible language, nor do they have to explain jargon if the audience can be expected to understand the jargon. They certainly are not required to give a complete refresher course on the fundamentals of the subject, right back to primary school level. Nor do they have to resolve ambiguities that are not actually ambiguous.
-
You're saying that deliberately refusing to use macrons when actually writing in Maori in a formal document that is meant to be used by many people, and has a long preparation time and multiple reviews, is culturally insensitive? If so, I agree.
Why do you keep banging on about the macrons then (see what you wrote about Craig's IRD letter). That seems to be where the conversation started, and I struggle to connect that to the issue of pedantry in the form of the straw man that you have constructed. Of course nobody likes petulant people who correct you on the public square as a form of put-down, even when it was entirely obvious what you meant. But who among us has ever said different?
-
I'll never forget a teacher at intermediate school wasting about 3 hours of my life teaching me about apostrophes, by tearing up the work and making me write it again. She was actually totally wrong about apostrophes, but that wasn't going to stop her making her point about how important they are. Over, and over and over. Until the wrong way was totally drummed into my head.
Just on the apostrophy issue, Janet Holmes has this to say: Get rid of them altogether.
"I am sure those of you who disagree with me are even now working furiously to find words and phrases which (out of context) might be ambiguous without an apostrophe. Well, note how long it takes you to find examples, and then consider that your distant forebears complained when people stopped using capital letters for nouns (as the Germans still do), and not long ago people protested just as vehemently about deleting the full stops after Mr and Mrs.
The truth is that people who have learned how to use apostrophes have a vested interest in maintaining them. Its like correct grammar. Learning all those rules has to mean something doesnt it?"
-
Oh, and trust Emma to bring the smut in a conversation about spelling...
-
Oh, and trust Emma to bring the smut in a conversation about spelling...
I consider it an immoral obligation.
-
Stephen, I'm glad you get what I'm saying, whether it was a thread-jack or not. I don't really think it was. I'm perfectly grateful to anyone who has assisted in putting up useful information about how to get your fonts right. I'm only arguing against the people who pigheadedly insist on it. To me, a mode of communication is not 'right or wrong', it's 'helpful or unhelpful', and it's the unhelpful stuff I don't hold with.
Paul, I'm pretty sure you get me. Stephen Fry appears to. I'm certainly not accusing anyone on this forum of being a pointless pedant. They may be advocating on their behalf, though. I'm advocating on the other behalf, the multitude of people who have things to say, which they say clearly, if imperfectly.
-
They may be advocating on their behalf, though.
Could you name one person who's doing that?
-
I disagree. A great deal of communication is about trying to understand the other person's intent. If it is not well conveyed, that's the writer's fault, sure, but if you deliberately refuse to make an effort, that's your fault.
Yes, I am asserting that the onus is entirely on the writer. The IRD example is a bit of a red herring because they've got State force to back them up if you don't make the effort to understand what they want. Most other writers don't.
Communication is almost always about persuasion. You write something because you want another person or people to know something and/or to do something. If you are not able (like IRD is) to compel me to know/do that thing, you will have to persuade me.
Why on Earth do you think other people should have to make an effort to know/do what you want? If you are too lazy and/or pigheaded to make yourself clear, why should I care enough to read what you've written, let alone do the job of working out what you mean for you?
Just to be clear, I'll repeat:
You wanting something from me puts no onus on me whatsoever.
-
Like an awful lot of people here, clear and precise communication is my job. It's probably going to come up in conversation sometimes.
And given the occupational profile of the PAS readership (more white collar freelancers than in the population at large, I suspect), I'm sure there's a lot of horror stories about time, energy and money pissed up against the wall because a client wasn't crystal clear about exactly what they wanted.
-
I'm sure there's a lot of horror stories about time, energy and money pissed up against the wall because a client wasn't crystal clear about exactly what they wanted.
A friend of mine, a Business Analyst by trade, told me recently that at his last performance review he was advised (in fairly forecful terms) to stop complaining about his "clients" and learn to embrace ambiguity.
He wanted to suggest that maybe his clients could learn to embrace clarity, but he thought it might be a career limiting strategy.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.