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1. #18925 For fun, Asterisks.com shares some amusing blunders collected by editors. Asterisks.com (1999). Humor>Language>Writing>Localization 2. #19529 The Benefits of a Job Well Done A parable about the lives of a high-tech technical writing team. Ken puts his twenty-five years as a technical writer to good use in this fictional work about four people hired to write manuals for Xoom-tek. In the chapter excerpted, Ken takes a humorous look at RIFs and downsizings. Wisman, Ken. TECHWR-L (2003). Humor>Documentation>Software 3. #20776 The Biggest Lies Heard by Technical Writers This list is the result of a thread started on the Techwr-l listserver group about the biggest lies we, as technical writers, hear on an almost weekly basis. Documentia (2003). Humor>Writing>Technical Writing 4. #24016 Humorous malapropisms taken from various popular locales. Editorial Eye, The (1997). Humor>Writing 5. #21664 Boredom: The Secret of Tech Writing Of course, it's not 100% all of the time boring. Just some of it, on a fairly regular but not intolerable basis. But boring all the same. Higgins, Lisa. TECHWR-L (2000). Humor>Writing>Technical Writing 6. #23219 The Bumper Book of Technical Boobs Humorous examples of accidental (and humorous) errors in technical descriptions. Most of the gems on the following pages were, thankfully, picked up at the editing stage. One or two slipped through into printed books; some didnÕt even get as far as first draft stage. We have wondered for a long time about the mentality of the people who write this sort of thing; now you, too, can sit at your desk and try to figure out what these technical authors (yes, they actually get paid for this!) and engineers are on, where they got it from and whether they will give you some. Watson, Sophie. ISTC (2004). Humor>Writing>Technical Writing 7. #28305 HCI Vistas presents cartoons that illustrate the interesting relationship between the human and computer. Katre, Dinesh S. HCeye (2006). Humor>Computing>Human Computer Interaction 8. #24008 Technical writing sounds like the ideal job. Dyen, Natalie Zellat. NatalieWritings. Humor>Writing>Documentation 9. #13941 If it's a good day, you arrive at work around seven o'clock, grateful for having missed the morning rush hour. Today's not a good day, so instead you crawl out from under the shakey shelf in your cubicle, glad that neither your cranky, obsolete computer nor the stale glass of Jolt cola fell on you during the night. Don't laugh; it's happened before, and putting yourself back together again cost you an hour of sleep you desperately needed. You smell the stench of cold pizza, and what's really appalling is that you're not sure whether it's coming from your shirt, your breath, or a hidden cache somewhere in the cubicle under piles of documentation someone left you to review. That's not your problem right now. 10. #10847 Dilbert, sometimes referred to as a 'patron saint of technical communicators,' represents a sort of workplace humor that often illuminates TC experiences. This website shows the past month's worth of episodes from the daily syndicated cartoon. Adams, Scott. United Feature Syndicate. Humor>Workplace>Engineering 11. #13066 A web-based game, in which you master the usability issues of driving a Mack truck over well-known usability experts. Urbanev.com (2000). Humor>Usability 12. #25807 Some people ask me about the frustrations and difficulties involved in the business of technical documentation. As a reply, I tell them this joke. Documentia (2003). Humor>Documentation>Writing>Technical Writing 13. #29416 Conveying the emotional tone of a Web page has, up until now, been impossible with HTML, and the XML standard fails to address this issue. As an interim solution, developers have proposed several new tags to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (1998). Humor>Computing>XML>Emotions 14. #19766 E-Mail, Acronyms, and Alphabet Soup Emoticons have become pretty complex, now including ones like :-# [lips are sealed], :-& [tongue tied], or :-'' [pursing lips]. Ray, Deborah S. TECHWR-L (1998). Humor>Writing>Correspondence>Email 15. #10796 This morning I woke up in a cold sweat -- which was odd, because I usually wake up in bed. In my dream, or rather nightmare, I was reviewing a manuscript that was due to be returned to a client that very morning. As I recalled the dream, I realized why I was sweating -- the manuscript had been edited by someone who combined the worst characteristics of every copy editor I'd ever known. Mickle, Lee. Editorial Eye, The (1997). Humor>Writing>Editing 16. #25999 Engineering Terms in Plain English Twenty terms from engineering writiting translated into the vernacular. PlainLanguage.gov (2004). Humor>Writing>Engineering>Minimalism 17. #27489 Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness Lists wacky, bizarre, surreal and otherwise strange examples of technical documentation, particularly illustration. Barefoot, Darren K. Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness (2005). Humor>Writing>Technical Illustration>Technical Writing 18. #20778 Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness Welcome to my Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness. On this page, I list wacky, bizarre, surreal and otherwise strange examples of technical documentation, particularly illustration. DarrenBarefoot (2003). Humor>TC>Technical Illustration>Localization 19. #26030 Hexadecimal Color Codes in HTML That Look or Sound Dirty, But Are in Fact Merely Colorful It's just like how you can make your calculator spell BOOBS, although people inexperienced with HTML probably won't appreciate it. Genusa, Angela. McSweeney's Internet Tendency (2004). Humor>Web Design>HTML>Color 20. #10794 How come...everyone still says there is 'an error in the docs!' Gooch, Chris. TECHWR-L (1999). Humor>Writing 21. #10799 A dog-ate-my-homework computer failure from the Ray computer logs. Ray, Deborah S. TECHWR-L (1998). Humor>Computing 22. #11754 I open my usability presentations with this true story: I was given a large, frozen turkey a few years ago. When it came time to prepare the turkey, I placed it on a kitchen counter to let the turkey thaw. Thomas, Joyce. Usability Interface (2001). Humor>Documentation 23. #26000 Fifty-two humorous rules about how to write well (each of which is broken). PlainLanguage.gov (2004). Humor>Writing>Grammar 24. #24178 For this year's humor contest, Intercomasked readers to write instructions for imaginary devices. The contest was inspired by Stanislaw Lem, a writer of science fiction who also published collections of reviews and introductions to books that don't exist. 25. #19767 Humor for the Technical Writing Class Here are some examples and pointers to humor about resumes, documentation and mistaken English. Karplus, Kevin. University of California Santa Cruz (2003). Humor>Language>TC
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