RE: Question about "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Technical Writing"

["McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

I think that particular cleverness comes AFTER the 
decision to buy the book, to rationalize the choice.  :-)

Having already decided not to buy any of them, I 
still read "Complete Idiot's..." as a phrase 
modifying "Guide".

Tomayto, tomahto.

So... um... techwriter-ish question:

How could it have been modified in order to ensure 
the desired clustering of modifiers in the mind of 
the average reader?  Any punctuation you can think 
of that might have worked with the same word-order 
to adjust the emPHAsis?  Any word order that would 
have done the job without hopelessly contorting 
the title?

It could have been "The Complete Brain-dead 
Microencephalic's Guide to Whatever", and it 
would have been obvious, because in order for 
the first term to modify the person rather than 
the guide, that first term would have needed to 
be "Completely", not "Complete". 

But I think many of us have heard persons described 
as "complete idiots", and so that's what comes up 
when the brain is deciding how to scan "Complete Idiot's 
Guide...". But I might be an atypical Dummy about 
that sort of thing.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim J. Slager [mailto:TSlager -at- isdcorporation -dot- com]
> 
> I think "complete" modifies Guide. That's what makes it clever. I
> rather like the title. Something Socratic there, reminding us of our
> ignorance.
> 
> tims

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