Take Our W-O-R-D for It

This column interprets a variety of words, phrases, and acronyms encountered in technical communication. Learn and laugh as your peers provide real world and sometimes cheeky definitions in each issue.

This issue's definitions are provided courtesy of your fellow Willamette Valley Chapter members.

Help Authoring:

What you need when you have writer's block.
— Christy Graunke

What you need when suffering from writer's block.
— David Brown

Writing “HELP” in the sand when you are stuck on a desert island.
— Kevin Cox

TIF:

What you and your image editing software get into when you can't get it to do what you want.
— David Brown

What engineers write on their shoes: Toes In First.
— Kevin Cox

Hotspot:

What you find yourself in when you spend so long making cool interactive graphics that you fall behind schedule on the rest of your work.
— David Brown

An erogenous zone.
— Kevin Cox

Fuzzy Logic:

What you must have used when you decided to raise your visibility by volunteering to lead that huge documentation project.
— David Brown

A Beanie Baby for engineers.
— Kevin Cox

Leading:

That's silly! It means who's winning in a game or race, of course…
— Kevin Cox

Additional Resources

The following are just a few among many web sites that can help you quickly identify this issue's actual definitions on your own:

whatis.techtarget.com/

hokum.freehomepage.com/Content/Glossary/Glossary_Technical.html

www.wright.edu/~martha.sammons/Links/TECHWRIT.HTM