I’ve been known to be very fragrant given the right circumstances.
[quote=“Fortigurn”][quote=“urodacus”]“disposed rotatingly” would earn the job a swift trip to the round filing cabinet, with a large “Do not return until you have learnt the error of your ways, and paid me double the previously agreed rate” attached to its forehead.
i often have a similar argument with scientists. “just because you see a particular expression used one way in many other articles, it does NOT mean that it is A) good English, B) acceptable phrasing or terminology, or C) going to pass my desk.” sheesh, that’s why you employ me.[/quote]
It’s because people like engineers and scientists don’t understand that the purpose of writing such a document is to communicate effectively with people outside their field of expertise.
[/quote]
I understand your point about engineers writing crap English they picked up and don’t know how to employ correctly.
But you’re still talking out your hindquarters about the suitability of those two modifiers in patent process.
I’m not saying we’d use them in conversation, but they are perfectly acceptable within the parameters of accepted, and even, required patent drafting terminology.
The requirements of patent coverage, like contract and many other types of legal expression, result in the real need for certain constructions that, in everyday communication, would appear obtuse and unwieldy.
If you were working for me you wouldn’t be editing out either of those terms, and I sincerely hope you aren’t taking someone’s money under the pretense of being qualified to judge what is and isn’t acceptable within such specific lexica.
happily i am not required to sit through that kind of language manglement. i have different kinds to deal with.
I do what is necessary to get the job done, and I guess that if that was actually my field of work, and that WAS a required construction, it would get the big red OK stamp. But i still think it’s awful English, and if there was a better way to write it, I would use the better way. I don’t even know what ‘disposed rotatingly’ means. there are many possible meanings it could have. does it mean: “I felt like rotating”? could it perhaps be trying to convey the impression of “distributed radially”? “able to be turned, like a rotary knob”? the meaning is NOT clear to outsiders, and as MT points out, if he can’t understand it while scrutinising the diagrams, it’s bad and deserves to get changed.
much the same can be said for lots of business jargon, which is language manglement par extraordinaire.
sorry, i much prefer engineers to most management types.
lexica is a nice word, though. thank you for using it.
[quote=“urodacus”]happily I am not required to sit through that kind of language manglement. I have different kinds to deal with.
I do what is necessary to get the job done, and I guess that if that was actually my field of work, and that WAS a required construction, it would get the big red OK stamp. But i still think it’s awful English, and if there was a better way to write it, I would use the better way. I don’t even know what ‘disposed rotatingly’ means. there are many possible meanings it could have. does it mean: “I felt like rotating”? could it perhaps be trying to convey the impression of “distributed radially”? “able to be turned, like a rotary knob”? the meaning is NOT clear to outsiders, and as MT points out, if he can’t understand it while scrutinising the diagrams, it’s bad and deserves to get changed.
much the same can be said for lots of business jargon, which is language manglement par extraordinaire.
sorry, i much prefer engineers to most management types.
lexica is a nice word, though. thank you for using it.[/quote]
You are most welcome.
One is glad to be of service.
And, just to (hopefully) put this one to bed, it’s most assuredly NOT intended for outsiders to read or understand.
It’s to describe, as is all patent language, a very specific physical condition, using language which is simultaneously descriptive whilst allowing NO prevarication or misinterpretation of meaning.
It’s intended to provide a description that can’t be wiggled into any other meaning by shifty litigious types.
For 20 fuckin years, no less.
Thanks, and good night.
One of the truly awful words I used to come across was from the India office, where the nasty nationalistic fucks didn’t like to talk about the arse falling out of companies, but rather said company may be experiencing a period of “de-growth.”
HG
I understand that. What I object to is the use of obtuse and unwieldy expressions where clear and simple expressions can effectively replace them.
I can assure you I am not. Every time I edit a document I do so in consultation with the staff of my IP company, namely an IP administrator (who is my liason), and the patent engineers (to whom the IP administrator communicates my edits for review, complete with my comments and questions). They also helpfully provided me with a document written by a Western academic specifically on patent applications in Taiwan, which explains how to make patent application documents clearer and easier to read (interestingly it suggests avoiding jargon and avoiding overuse of legal terminology).
I perform an initial edit, and include questions and comments in the margin. This is sent to the IP administrator for review by both them and the patent engineers. Then return the document to me with their answers and comments. I typically go through this process two or three times before the document is finalized.
They answer my questions, remark on my comments, and clarify various issues (including language and terminology). I have learned a great deal of patent terminology and language from them as a result, and I have no problems using the idiotic phrases which are required by patent law and expected by the patent office (such as ‘The capacitor 3’, and bizarre uses of ‘teach’ and ‘disclose’).
The most common question I write in the margin of the documents I edit when rewording anything is ‘這是你要表達的意思嗎？’ (‘Is this the intended meaning?’), and the choice is then theirs as to whether or not to accept the edit I have made. Commonly they accept my rewording of engineering manglish where the phrase I have used expresses the same meaning, with the same clarity, in a manner appropriate to the patent application and patent law. Where this is not the case, they will always correct me, and I will learn not to make the same edit again in future.
The engineers with whom I worked in my last company were nothing short of brilliant (as engineers), and I was always amazed at what they could do with our company’s technology. They were working on cutting edge adaptive opportunistic multiple access wireless communication (the technical difficulties of which Vodafone has demurely described as ‘non-trivial’), and made significant progress in a very short time under huge pressures and extreme challenges.
However, they were chronically task oriented, they were not effective communicators (in any language), they had no concept of intellectual property, they had no concept of document management, and little to no comprehension of inter-departmental cooperation. Their idea of a product manual suitable for our international clients was three pages of broken paragraphs in Chinglish, without a contents page, introduction, glossary, or inventory of supplied equipment, accompanied by photos of our products which they had taken with a cell phone (producing typical results). They were engineers.
Here’s a recent one:
“As [color=darkred]Chinaman[/color] of the Department, I am pleased to …”
[quote=“Chris”]Here’s a recent one:
“As [color=darkred]Chinaman[/color] of the Department, I am pleased to …”[/quote]
Sounds like the Cupertino effect.
[quote=“Chris”]Here’s a recent one:
“As [color=darkred]Chinaman[/color] of the Department, I am pleased to …”[/quote]
tsk tsk…don’t they know its “as the Chinaman of the department”?!?