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Subject:RE: Industry jargon OK in marketing docs? From:"Connie Giordano" <connie -at- therightwordz -dot- com> To:<salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:36:06 -0400
I don't about other sectors, but it's well-known terminology in US federal
acquisition circles, particularly among agencies that follow
performance-based acquisition. I hated it until I heard many professionals
in that sector using the term. If her target audience is acquisition
professionals in the public sector it will be well understood. The same may
be true if it's terminology used in other sectors.
I don't offer my judgments on terminology and jargon unless I know the
industry and the target audience. Since we don't know the company's
marketing strategy, we cannot determine whether it's deliberate or not, or
appropriate or not. Not all marketing is consumer-based or evil in intent.
My rule is if jargon helps clarity of message to the intended audience, then
use it, if not then don't. It's another one of those "it depends"
scenarios.
MTC
Connie P. Giordano
The Right Words, LLC
Communications & Information Design
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." - Walt Disney
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+connie=therightwordz -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+connie=therightwordz -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Chris Morton
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 11:51 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Industry jargon OK in marketing docs?
Can you provide a more complete contextual reference, Julie?
As you wrote herein, "contractor spend" makes absolutely no sense to me even
as (so-called) jargon. If I saw it in a marketing piece, I'd consider the
company to inattentive to detail and would not think very highly of them. If
I sensed it was a deliberate move, I might even boycott whatever it is
they're selling merely for the further adulteration of our language.
> Chris
On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Julie Stickler <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> While I'm out of work I'm doing some contracting for previous
> employers. Last week I formatted some marketing docs for the place
> that I used to work a year ago. The text had already gone through
> several edits (that I wasn't involved in) so since I was mostly hired
> to format it in InDesign and generate a PDF, I only fixed one glaring
> error, changing "contractor spend" to "contractor spending."
>
> Today I recieved an e-mail asking for the following "Change ?spending?
> back to ?spend? for phrases like ?contractor spend.? This is industry
> jargon."
>
> Arggghhhh! I was always taught to remove jargon from my docs. But
> then I have done mostly software manuals and help, I haven't had much
> experience writing marketing documents. One the one hand I'm thinking
> that since I'm contracting, the customer is always right. If that's
> what they want, that's what I should give them. On the other hand,
> gramatically incorrect jargon makes me cringe.
>
> So I ask you, TECH-Wrlers, do you include industry jargon in your
> marketing docs?
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
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2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
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