Just another day in the life of a technical editor… 😀
So I’m reviewing this really long and complicated architecture specification document (written by a team of engineers), and I come across the names they’ve decided to call the modules: ELVIS and COSTELLO.
ELVIS stands for “ELementwise Vectorized Iterative Sequencer” and COSTELLO stands for “COmplementary STreaming ELementwise LOgic”.
It’s pretty clear that they were really proud of these backronyms, but something about them raised a red flag in my mind when I saw them.
Oh, wait – that’s right! You shouldn’t use names of famous people when naming your product! They might sue you! 😀
I remembered a famous case where Carl Sagan sued Apple for using his name internally for one of their products (https://lnkd.in/dtyqUnS).
So I contacted Legal and the engineers and told them “Listen, I like British New Wave just as much as the next guy, but you can’t call the modules this.”
They were disappointed.
But that’s one of the things that a technical editor has to look for – editing is more than just style and grammar!
Do you have a similar story you’d like to share?
Send it to editor@stc-techedit.org and maybe we’ll publish it here! 🙂
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