Word Choices

As someone who has a history of writing for the public (my time at The Phat Phree as well as my blog) I know what writers go through to make sure that the correct words are used to properly convey a message. The usage of the wrong word and you risk losing some of your audience...it's part of the reason that proper grammar is still necessary, even though AIM users might argue otherwise. That being said, I came across a very interesting article this afternoon about faults with in human thought:

http://listverse.com/2010/01/07/top-10-common-faults-in-human-thought/

The reason of my posting this is not to induce thought provoking discussion, but rather because I thought #8 was amazingly hilarious. On the surface, #8 talks about Pareidolia, an occurance of seeing something significant in a random item or place...think of the people who see Jesus' face in toast and think it's divine intervention (much like the picture from the website).

Now the author, Nikki, could have left her (I'm assuming it's a her) relatively well written segment about pareidolia alone; however, she felt the need to introduce a brief synopsis of the Rorschach Test...further referring to those who take the test as 'testees.' Now, I am fully aware that 'testees' is the correct nomenclature for referring to a test taker, however, I am certainly not above laughing at the name. Additionally, I am not above laughing at the last line of the section: "Responses are analyzed to discover the testee’s hidden thoughts." To which I thought to myself: I'm fairly certain my 'testees' have only one thought, and my guess is that it is not a secret.

Posted via email from Jimmy's posterous