this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
-23 points (32.8% liked)

Technology

59232 readers
3103 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
-23
The surprisingly subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed the way we use language (www.bbc.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The surprisingly subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed the way we use language::As Microsoft Word turns 40, we look at the role the software has played in four decades of language and communication evolution.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"Word templates led people to use the same formatting in communications, and eventually, this has become instantiated as a norm," says Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, where she studies human-computer interaction. If you work in finance, there's a specific way reports are expected to be laid out. Letters follow a set pattern, memos are largely formatted in the same way. "Users know where to find information in these standardised documents; they don’t need to spend time trying to find what they need."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at least Germany seems to have standards for this since 1949, so I doubt this can be contributed to Microsoft (alone).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Yeah, whe learned these standards in school.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There were books of letter and document templates, folks. Microsoft did not invent the semi-block format.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Right?

I'd posit WWII was the single greatest influence in recent history for more extensive standardization of just about everything in the business/project management/production/transportation/logistics worlds, and guess what - they all use tools like documentation and communication documents.

There were typing pools... And somehow Word standardized how docs are written/created??

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

And this BS from a "professor".

There's a reason for the phrase "Piled higher, Deeper" and this "professor" exemplifies it.