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Can you re-illiterate this?
by loiswakeman @ 18 Dec. 2007 - 15:13:36

"Technical Author - Contract

Based in Farnborough we are currently recruiting for a technical author who has had experience using Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Illustrator and FrameMaker. Candidates responding to this position will require full understanding of product development life cycle, the ability to re-illiterate technical documentations into basic documents for less technical body's to understand and have experience writing manuals and user guides for mobile phone products." - job ad on JobServe

What a joy - not only a greengrocer's apostrophe, but a neologism that means the exact opposite of what was presumably meant. For Christmas presents there's Mastercard - but re-illiterate: priceless!

They weren't joking when they said they needed a TA!

Thanks to my chum Steve Rickaby for finding this.

7 comments | Permalink | Recommend this post
Tags: apostrophe, grammar, job ad, neologism, punctuation,

Comments: Hide subcomments

The_WalrusThe_Walrus [Member]
http://www.doctor-dark.co.uk
18/12/07 @ 15:40

My guess is that it really IS supposed to say re-illiterate, and refers to the process by which a carelessly written manual, that is just about readable, is obfuscated to protect the content...

EllieGantEllieGant pro
18/12/07 @ 15:43

It might explain why I find 'manual's' so completely useless and I remain a complete duffer in computer terms, despite having a significant collection of re-illiterate ones

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loiswakemanloiswakeman [Member]
http://lois.co.uk
18/12/07 @ 15:54

It certainly explains why the occupation of tech author is often so poorly regarded: pidgin English written by foreign programmers (or job recruiters) is not necessarily the best image for my chosen profession!

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tylluanpenrytylluanpenry pro
18/12/07 @ 16:12

It'll never win an award for clarity!

How about this spotted on a sign at Gatwick:
'Passenger shoe repatriation area only'

:))

| Show subcomments
loiswakemanloiswakeman [Member]
http://lois.co.uk
18/12/07 @ 16:16

Ah: that could possiby also expain where all the odd socks go too: they are sent to Foreign Parts, never to be seen again.

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LissaTLissaT pro
18/12/07 @ 22:20

Someone I knew years ago trained as a technical author when he was made redundant, but presumably he wasn't illiterate enough because all it made him was (in his own words) 'a better class of unemployed person'.

loiswakemanloiswakeman [Member]
http://lois.co.uk
03/01/08 @ 12:35

The orignal job to which this referred has now gone - but Jobserve continues to be a trove of gormless English.
Today, we have:

"Technical Author, Technical Writer, Reading, Berkshire

My Reading based client is seeking an experienced Technical Author with strong documentation skills. My client are a growing organisation focusing on Internet security. The role will involve Designing, organizing, and writing technical documents, tutorials, training materials, white papers, Knowledge Base articles, Help systems, and the like for customers, partners, and employees, to describe how to use the companies products and solutions." - thank you Sandra Miles for that display of erudition (my italics)

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