Re: [ontolog-forum] Intensional relation

[Ed Barkmeyer <edbark@xxxxxxxx>]

Matthew,

Those who were not aware of the effort may find some interest in the link.  Thanks for that.

The "plain language guidance" for US Government folk is basically a rehash of parts of Strunk and White ("The Elements of Style"):  use short sentences, use active voice, avoid circumlocutions like "the development of" for "developing", and use the terms business people use, rather than "government speak" or "lawyer speak".  One of their examples is:  "X reduces the economic impact of the implementation of Y" can be replaced by "X makes Y cost less."  But there are similar examples in Strunk & White.

All this, however, is distant from the issue of presenting a complex concept set clearly.  "Plain language" for the Government means using natural language in a way that the average citizen will understand, because they may have to abide by, or benefit from, whatever is being said.  Our discussion was about the use of natural language to explain complex concepts, along with or instead of a formal language.  I assume that one does not carefully specify a complex conceptualization in some domain to "average citizens", but rather to peers in that domain.  The idea of presenting a tutorial for people who are not at that level is "quite another thing entirely".  I am not going to be concerned about carefully specifying the technical characteristics of my gearing system if I have to start by explaining what a transmission is.

-Ed

-- 
Edward J. Barkmeyer                        Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Systems Integration Division, Engineering Laboratory
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263                Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263                Cel: +1 240-672-5800

"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, 
 and have not been reviewed by any Government authority."

On 1/4/2013 4:09 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:

FYI Plain language may be reference to http://plainlanguage.gov resources?

In government, there is such a thing and definition of "PLAIN LANGUAGE"

On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 2:54 PM, Rich Cooper <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In my limited contact with the medical and life sciences communities, it

has been my experience that the "plain language" is not by any means

"plain".  The language is created by introducing a new term for every

combination of properties that is of interest, either by defining a new

"property", or more commonly by defining a new "class" that inherits

every property but one from some subsuming cl ass and adds the one new

property.  The result is a language in which most of the sentences are

fairly simple and structurally easy to understand, but they depend on a

huge proliferation of terms to accomplish that simplicity.  The concepts

are no less complex, and it requires looking at 5 definitions to

determine what was said.

 

This approach is the reverse of mathematical notations, which create a

grammar that allows complex statements to be unambiguously written, and

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