deird1 | *coughs*

You're viewing

deird1's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

deird1

A professional blog that may or may not be written by me is here:

The Editing Engineer

Just so you know.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

velvetwhip

I dig the blog. You'd be surprised how few companies are staffed by people who can write a single sentence that makes sense. As an example, I present this excerpt from an email I just received from the customer service department at Bare Escentuals:

For now we are currently would love for you to asking that you call customer care and one of our beauty associates will take your information for completing your FAB profile.

Gabrielle

From:

deird1

*facepalm*

Oh dear.

From:

velvetwhip

The word "appalling" comes to mind. Somewhere there is an unemployed English major who would dearly love this job and instead it's being done by someone who doesn't even proofread her emails.

Gabrielle

From:

vass

I love it. Particularly the poor people trying to make their windows comply with CSS56.7987 (“Standard Dog Grooming Regulations, 2010".)

Back when I was at uni, I was a member of the science fiction and fantasy club there. This taught me a lot about the writing and English skills of engineers. What I found worst about some of the people I knew then was their complete inability to believe that they were wrong, even about a subject they'd never studied. They're very smart and rational, and their version makes sense to them, so they must be right. Why would I know better? I'm not smart enough to study engineering, after all (they knew this because if I were smart enough, that's what I would be studying, right?)

We played Bartok a lot. It's a card game in which if you ask a question, you have to draw a penalty card. I once took nearly half an hour trying to get

aslan42 (who, to be fair, studied compsci, not engineering) to accept that "I wonder whose turn it is." is not a question.

fasangel was the editor of our newsletter, which published original fantasy and science fiction short stories. The worst part was dealing with one particular guy who simply would not believe that she was right and he was wrong about his spelling and punctuation. He'd pick fights with her. With the person he was asking to publish his writing. (I'm sure there was also some misogyny operating there.)

Edited Date: 2012-05-04 06:11 am (UTC)

From:

ruuger

Whoa, I'm having a flashback to my last project three years ago where I had to edit developer documentation written by engineers.

My favourite document ever was one that had installation instructions that ended with "Press enter. Lo and behold, [name of the software] is started." It also had smileys in it. And the word "n000b".