Further, medical errors are the 8th cause of death in the U.S. So, clear communication may be a little more sensitive to me.

I am not against clear communication. It just seems to me that if the intended meaning of an utterance is not clear from the context (conversation), you ask (as you presumably did with your friend) for clarification. You would admit that most people are not literalists. If they were, you wouldn't need the label. It also seems to me that many who ignore the intended meaning do so to get a rise out of the person who made the utterance. I have long ago decided you are not one of these perverse literalists.

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I have long ago decided you are not one of these perverse literalists.

No, I don't think I am perverse. I am not even sure if I am a literalist. Maybe it's more like being gullible, I am not sure. On the other hand, I do think that the "pouring tea on your knees," and the context that it was a Chinese tradition, wasn't that off. I think others would have understood it that way too.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Remember, however, I work in a field where the leading cause of medical errors is miscommunication. Further, medical errors are the 8th cause of death in the U.S.

This context sure puts a different light on editing, doesn't it? The goal is not 'correct English' (if there were such a thing), nor 'polish', giving it class, etc. I'll bet you have to circulate edited drafts widely to find possible misinterpretations you might have missed, & include drawings for those who grasp meaning better with visuals than with words.

How does one draw a picture of .08ml of a drug? I do see your point about graphics, but aren't there times when only words that cannot be taken but one way must be used? While I've railed against descriptivism mostly for fun, I do feel that in law and medicine some precise standards are needed - if such a thing is possible.

While I've railed against descriptivism mostly for fun, I do feel that in law and medicine some precise standards are needed - if such a thing is possible.

Which is the reason that many technical documents have a section with precise definitions in them. List of terms and meanings for the context of the document only, and not trying to set some arbitrary standard for communication that falls outside of that context. This is how you get laughable things like tomatoes counting as vegetables in some federal law, whereas botanists would describe them as fruit.

As for descriptivists, they are not against clear communication or arbitrary usage standards. (I try to use them all the time in my day job.) Their position is merely that to describe a language L used by some group G, you have to describe how L works and what its constituents mean within the context of its usage by G. No hand-waving and incantations to external factors such as logic or what things mean in language X used by prestige group P. Simple really. The tough part is doing the observation and description.

I actually think prescriptivists are more apt to cause medical errors. Clarity is essential and forget about the "up with which I will not put" situations. I have seen so many contrived sentences to appease editors that it's almost funny. But it wouldn't be were someone's life on the line.

The communication errors that occur in medicine/nursing are not so much in long documents, with or without graphics. It's more in verbal communication or handwritten medical orders. Fortunately, now most orders are written via computer, but still orders are sometimes just not understood.