[conspire] Colson's Swim

[Don Marti]

begin Nick Moffitt quotation of Mon, Jun 08, 2020 at 10:25:13AM +0000:

> Taking this back a step: the question you *always* need to ask yourself when choosing words is "will my audience receive this communication clearly and accurately?"  For example, I wouldn't use the word "homophone" (as above) in a context where I worried that the audience would hear it as "homophobe" or mistakenly assume it had some other connection to LGBT topics.  I use it here because I expect you all to recognise its denotation without confusion.

Not as bad as when the PTA finds out that one of the
teachers wrote an article about pedagogy.

> Of course people will read advice on communicating clearly without unintended offence and immediately jump to a rabid "THOUGHT POLICE!!! THIS IS LIKE 1984!!!" reaction.
> 
> I remain, as always, singularly unimpressed by that reaction.

Yes, if the point is to communicate clearly, better
to the readers to think about the substance of
the material (criteria for getting on a blocklist,
how it's administered, how a blocklist entry can
be removed, all the hard stuff) and not make them
waste their time on wondering if you're trolling
or expressing a political position by using the
other word.

-- 
Don Marti <dmarti at zgp.org>                   
https://blog.zgp.org/
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