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>The situation is not unlike the difficulty with street-name signs in Massachusetts that has perhaps been fixed but probably not.
Hasn't been fixed, but according to local legend this is an example of "it's not a bug, it's a feature."
The conventional wisdom is that the practice began during the early to mid 1770s, when the local rebels started taking down some of the street name signs in order to confuse the British Army. Local residents would know what street they were on, the Redcoats wouldn't.
So, it's a feature that has long since outlived its usefulness. Wow, good thing we never see things like that in our profession, right?
Rick Lippincott, Technical Writer
American Science and Engineering, Inc. | www.as-e.com
Office +1-978-262-8807 | Fax +1-978-262-8702
rlippincott -at- as-e -dot- com
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-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+rlippincott=as-e -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+rlippincott=as-e -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Peter Neilson
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2014 5:58 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Terminology Question
Yes, I agree. I'd call it a bug.
The situation is not unlike the difficulty with street-name signs in Massachusetts that has perhaps been fixed but probably not. At any corner there might be a sign naming the minor street, but the bigger street was never identified. "Why should we give its name?" the DPW must have said to itself, "It's a waste of effort. If you're on the street you'll already know its name or you wouldn't be there."
On Fri, 30 May 2014 15:26:16 -0400, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> wrote:
> I probably wouldn't call it anything. "1. Type your user name and
> press Enter. 2. Type your password and press enter."
>
> I'd enter a bug report about the missing cursor.
>
> On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 11:41 AM, Joel W <eleysium -at- outlook -dot- com> wrote:
>> Let's say you have a screen with several boxes / fields for entering
>> data. The user moves from one box to the other, but there isn't a
>> cursor in the box to indicate what box she is using. What do you call
>> the presence in the box? i.e.:"Press enter. The ____ moves to the
>> next box."
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