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Subject:"Navigate" or "explore"? From:Robert Heath <robert -dot- heath -at- FRITZ -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 25 May 1999 12:16:20 -0700
The "Newspeak" column by Wayne Grytting in the current edition of Z Magazine
has this following small article:
Thesaurus Blues
---------------
The rivalry between Netscape's Navigator and Microsoft's Explorer web
browser has led to some recent caualties on the linguistic field. To get the
latest in correct terminology, we turn to Microsoft's "Manual of Style for
Technical Publications" (2nd edition, 1998, p. 185) where we find the
following instruction:
"Avoid the term 'navigate' to refer to moving from site to site, page to
page within a site, or link to link on the Internet...Instead use 'explore'
or 'move through' to refer to sequentially moving from one link or site to
another, or a similar neutral term describing the action."
...(rest of the article snipped)...
Has anyone read this instruction in Microsoft's guide? What do you think of
it? And what do you think of the word "explore" or the words "move through"
rather than "navigate"? (I haven't seen this addressed in the archives.)
Cheers,
Robert
*****************
Robert Heath
Technical Writer
Fritz Companies, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
