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Thursday, March 16, 2006

much ado about "chunks"

here's a strange thing a spotted on the net. It is from the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) in the UK. This is the department that was known rather quaintly as Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

I was in the process of looking up a particular Act of Parliament when I chanced upon this preliminary instruction:

"To ensure fast access over slow connections, large documents have been segmented into "chunks". Where you see a "continue" button at the bottom of the page of text, this indicates that there is another chunk of text available." http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/20060001.htm

Wait a minute.... Did I see the word "chunks"? Chunks? At Her Majesty's Office? That's not quite my idea of Queen's English. :-) Or is the HSMO now consuming "chunks" of the colloquial English that the rest of society freely uses in informal settings... oOPSIe....

I don't mean to be a nanny here. But, I was just quite amused at finding the word "chunks" at that website. This would have been an alternative way of rendering the instruction?:

"To ensure fast access over slow connections, large documents have been split into segments. Where you see a "continue" button at the bottom of the page of text, this indicates that there is another segment of the text available"

Just a suggestion.

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