Re[2]: Ego

[Bonni Graham <Bonni_Graham_at_Enfin-SD -at- RELAY -dot- PROTEON -dot- COM>]

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>> It is refreshing to read a piece that comes across as "friendly".
     >> Anyone else have thoughts?

>If the little person inside the book makes smarmy attempts to be
>my friend, or indulges a taste for lame jokes, I probably won't
>like him very much.  It's even worse is when he says things that
>aren't true, or doesn't seem to know what I want to find out.

I think we're talking about a change in writing style to avoid
sounding like a machine wrote the book, not bad humor or
insincere backpatting.  I agree that the above things are
tasteless, but they're tasteless in personal correspondence or
conversation as well.  I think all us in this forum have managed
to come across sounding friendly (except when we're flaming
people -- NOTE this is not a flame!!!) and personable in our
email postings with doing either of the abovementioned
distasteful things.  Granted, we're freer to indulge our
personalities here, but still, my point is that if we can do it
here, we can do it in our books.  I don't think either of the
things Joe mentions should be seen as blanket condemnations of
friendliness -- just of bad attempts at it.

BTW, is saying things that aren't true or creating a book whose
information is inaccessible _more_ acceptable when it's done
impersonally?  Just a thought...

Bonni Graham                               |
Technical Writer                           | serif, n.  A teensy-weensy
Easel Corporation, ENFIN Technology Lab    | crossbar attached to the
Bonni_Graham_at_Enfin-SD -at- relay -dot- proteon -dot- com | ends of letterforms by
President, San Diego STC                   | malevolent typesetters.  Ac-
                                           | cording to popular legend,
NOTE: apparently my email address needs    | the first serif was designed
to be typed exactly as it appears here,    | at Nottingham.
punctuation and all, or the system gets    |
upset.                                     |          --Ezra Shapiro