> In documentation, using words that people actually use in real
> life leads to much less tech support because people understand what
> it is you're trying to describe. Then they actually read the docs
> instead of letting their eyes glaze over and looking for the (800)
> number or email address.
FWIW, the docs for the Japanese WorkPad (in Japanese of course) consistantly
use the word "Device" to refer to the, er, device. Presumably a direct
translation of the English manual?
But the way they did it was not to find a normal Japanese word that means
"device," but to construct a new phonetic word out of the English word,
becoming "debaisu." This is fairly standard practice in Japanese, especially
when you talk about computers (see "Paamu Pairotto") but "debaisu" is not an
easily decoded word, especially because it's not the product name or
anything... One user on the Japanese P*lmP*lot mailing list remarked that he
read a good way into the manual before he suddenly figured out what the hell
a "debaisu" was! (:
Even though Japan generally isn't quite as rabid about using (TM)s and (R)s
to protect trademarks, we still recieve some of the shrapnel...
--
Pres NEVINS
Nishinomiya, Japan!
http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~preston
