Sunday, January 7, 2018
I've been reading a lot of technical documentation, blog posts, StackOverflow answers, and Reddit threads. Some writing stands out, having an apparent clarity, honesty, and maturity. I notice that my writing is not as good as it could be. Here are some things that I'd like to work on.
English contains something like 250,000 words, but these are not among them.
Pronounced hō-ˈmȯ-je-nəs, the noun derived from the verb "homogenize." This
is not a word. The word is "homogeneous," pronounced hō-mə-ˈjē-nē-əs (notice
the es).
An adjective derived from the noun "performance." But it's not a word. Maybe it is becoming one, thanks to us C++ programmers, but not yet. Use "fast" or "efficient" instead.
You mean "condense."
A less common mistake, but similar to above, you mean "converse."
You mean "regardless." I don't care what Merriam-Webster says.
You mean to "time travel," or perhaps to bill murray or to carruthanize (an example of carruthenasia).
Sometimes I say something other than what I meant, because what I said doesn't mean what I thought.
"i.e." is short for id est, which is Latin for "that is," which is used before a restatement for clarification or illustration. It does not introduce an example.
"e.g." is short of exempli gratia, which is Latin for "for example," which is used before an example. It does not mean the same thing as "i.e.," and neither means the same thing as the word "ergo."
"Ergo" means "therefore" or "thus." I see no reason to use "ergo."
Sometimes "whether" means "if," but more often it means "if or if not," which would mean "whether or not" can mean "if or if not or not," which is not what you meant. Instead, you can say "regardless of whether." This is not a definite rule, though, since "whether you like it or not" is an acceptable phrase, even though "regardless of whether you like it" means the same thing, as does "regardless of if you like it." What I think is wrong, though, is to say, "I don't know whether or not you like it." In this case, you could say "I don't know whether you like it," and so the "or not" is redundant. You might argue that in this last example, the additional "or not" emphasizes that I am unsure about the outcome, rather than am concerned about the positive outcome, but you also might not. "I don't know whether you like it" is clearer than "I don't know if you like it," though, since it avoids the potential ambiguity with "you like it" being a sufficient condition for "I don't know."
This is a rule that I learned in school, and I still disagree with it, but rules are rules. When punctation would logically follow a closing quotation, "like this," the punctuation must instead go just before the closing quote. The justification I heard is that "it looks better." It's infuriating because it can create ambiguity when you end a sentence with a quote. Peter read the text "Paul asked a question?"
OCD is an initialism for obsessive-compulsive disorder, and is a noun, not an adjective. You cannot "be OCD," and you cannot "get OCD about" something. "Obsessive compulsive," however, is an adjective, but "being OC" is not in use.
An acronym is pronounced as a word, e.g. NASA, OPEC, ASCII, and FUBAR. Many first-letter-of-every-word abbreviations, though, are not acronyms, since they are not pronounced as a word, but instead are only initialisms, such as CPU, LRU, and the NAACP.
These adverbs can be omitted without changing the meaning.
Sometimes I say something because it's close enough to what I mean, and I know it will create the desired association in the mind of the listener, but it's not exactly what I mean. I'd do better to avoid that.
You mean "now." If using the simple word "now" makes what you're saying sound silly or insubstantial, then maybe what you're saying is silly or insubstantial.
This means "eventually," or "in the future." I prefer either of those alternatives.
Besides being a bad image, this means "easy tasks."
You mean "easy task."
You mean "failure." I'm less critical about using "feel" where you mean "feeling," for some reason.
Usually when planning software that must be delivered quickly. This is a euphemism for "worry about it later," or "whatever." Stronger would be "neglect design." Generous would be "it won't matter."
Anyone who does something for money is a professional. Anything used in such a profession is professional. Usually this word is (unbeknownst to the speaker) a euphemism for "pretentious," "obedient," or "orthodox." I prefer "civil."
This is used instead of "not breaking." What stable actually means is "established." I prefer to distinguish between the two. Stable can also mean "not wavering," so I see the intent, but software that has never worked is also stable.
You mean "culpability." The term "accountability" is not mentioned when one is being held accountable for success.
This is a nice bit of jargon to describe something that happens a lot in computer programming, but it's a cliché. Maybe "bickering" is an alternative.
I haven't heard this one much, but I've read it, and used it before. Alternatives are "working" or "preparing" ("work," "preparation").
You mean "managing."
I try to keep in mind the points above when I'm editing my writing, which I don't do nearly enough. Sometimes I end up having to throw away what I've written and replace it with something that is simpler and more honest, but then it's less likely to be wrong.