A reminder to writers

[Chris Murphy]

On May 13, 2013, at 6:58 AM, John J. McDonough <wb8rcr at arrl.net> wrote:

> Within our documentation, we do not like to over use the word "see" as
> this can be an uncomfortable reminder to visually impaired readers.  It
> is especially challenging in the Release Notes as almost every other
> paragraph tends to refer the reader to an external link.  The result is
> paragraph after paragraph of "for details see ..." or "for more
> information see …".

The examples are idioms, they aren't meant to be taken so literally as to connote "vision required". 

Using the above proposed logic, the saying "I'm happy to see you" would cause a blind person to become uncomfortable. This is silly.

Blind people themselves say they "watch TV" and they "read books", and so on. The word see does not make them uncomfortable.

> Instead of "see", it is preferable to use terms like "refer to", "may be
> found at" or other terms that do not imply a particular way of reading.
> When referencing some user-visible change, exchange terms like "users
> will see improved performance" for phrases like "users will notice
> improved performance".
> 
> Simply being alert to this also helps make the prose a little less
> repetitive.

Making the prose less repetitive and idiomatic, is valid. It makes translation far easier and more accurate.


Chris Murphy