Re: Left hand side

[Bev Parks <bparks -at- HUACHUCA-EMH1 -dot- ARMY -dot- MIL>]

Just a big "thank you" to Sue Gallagher. Her message gave me the
biggest laugh I've had all day. I was laughing so hard that my
husband came into the room to ask me what the heck was so funny.

Thanks.

=====Sue's msg:
   [snip]
   I like this thread! It's comforting to know that I'm not
   the only directionally-impared tech writer in the world!  ;-)

   Once, when I was teaching a word processing class, I got so
   disoriented using the cursor arrow keys I had to write "left"
   and "right" in the appropriate corners of the white board to
   use as reference!

   But I;m even more confused now!  How could the left-hand side
   of the cabinet be on your right hand side when the cabinet
   doesn't have hands so the hands the instructions are referring
   to must be yours (or do they belong to the guy standing behind
   the cabinet)???

   Usually, when I write book instructions, I say "on the left
   side of the screen" or "in the left-most column of the table"(never
   considered using "hands"). From this discussion, it's hard to
   argue that including the word "hand" helps to make things
   clearer %-)

   If this is an assembly instruction, maybe a note at the beginning
   that says you mean the assembler's left and right, not the unit's
   left and right???

   OK, I'll be quiet now...

   Sue Gallagher
   StarBase Corp, Irvine CA
   sgallagher -at- starbasecorp -dot- com