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Sometimes words like "simply" and "easily" are extraneous and do nothing to reassure the reader. Not all the time though.
Someone posted "our users are not all idiots". So, are *some* of them idiots? Raise your hand if you have a "for Dummies" book.
These books contain headers like "On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!" for an installation procedure, followed by "you have spent a long time installing and during this time you have probably drunk a lot of coffee". Har hardy har. There are cute graphics, unfunny cartoons, and a bumble bee colored wrapper reminiscent of Cliff's Notes.
Fluffy though it may well be, it seems to be what millions of people want to buy.
As a cultural note, someone said Dummies books had had to be retitled in Italy. Not in France, where we are unselfconscious about flying the yellow and black flag of dummitude.
Anyhow, it's not really my cup of tea, all this fluffy fluff, but it sure seems to move books.
John Cornellier, tech writer, Paris. mailto:cornelli -at- clamart -dot- srpc -dot- slb -dot- com
