Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter
June/July 2008
| Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter June/July 2008 |
Technical writing can be boring. In order to maintain consistency for the user, make life easier for the translator, and keep to the product/corporate message, we must use the same terms, names, and words repeatedly, unceasingly, ad nauseam. For example, if the button is called "exit," we can't substitute "close," "quit," "terminate," "egress," or "tata for now!" to simply add variety and keep our reviewers awake. Consequently, I seek new life for my vocabulary through word games such as the crossword or Jumble in the daily newspaper. Recently, I found a new source, a Web site that lets me exercise and grow my vocabulary -- and help the hungry -- with just a few mouse clicks.
You, too, can go to www.Freerice.com and find a way to earn rice for UN hunger relief, twenty grains at a time, while enhancing your vocabulary. The sponsors that run ads on the page pay for the rice that you earn. Refugees from a variety of disasters, such as earthquakes, tropical cyclones, and droughts, or even political strife, receive the rice. You can check the FAQs to understand how and why the site is there; you can watch a video of rice distribution.
A word appears on the Web page; you pick the best match from a list of four other words or short phrases. If you get it right, you've earned 20 grains of rice and you can try again with another word. If you miss it, you don't earn any rice, but can try again with another word. The words get progressively harder as long as you get them right, but if you miss one, the next word is easier. The words range through a hodgepodge of topics, from animal names to medical terms, from foreign money to exotic foods, from science to mythology, from legal terms to slang.
You can play as much as you want and earn as much as you want. I typically play for about 10 minutes, get through 80 to 100 words, and donate about 1,500 to 1,800 grains of rice. That's about a half-serving of rice, which sounds puny until you consider how much rice is earned by people all over the world as they play. I play almost every day, and typically earn about four servings of rice per week and learn at least a couple of new-to-me words. And when the hungry people can eat, they can be ready to learn, and perhaps some day, they can need and read our technical documentation, too.