Rich, Thank you for explaining that words were made from letters and sentences were made from a mixture of words (and letters by the way). It's simply amazing how informative these exchanges can be! You said "We in the product safety industry must be very careful that we use symbols in strict accordance with their definitions". No issue with you there. However, the paper states that some of these misuses were perpetrated by people not even connected with electrical engineering, let alone safety. This brings me to another of your statements "The fact of misuse of symbols dilutes the meaning of the symbol. The more the misuse, the less valuable the symbol is for safety purposes." Perhaps this is true, let's assume it is for the moment. What then are the options available to us? Either we have to find a way of policing the use safety symbols or we have to face the possibility that every symbol described in IEC 60417 could become unusable due to misuse. Any suggestions on how to police (internationally, of course) the incorrect use of IEC and ISO symbols? So what do we do as regards written words? We look at the context in which the word is used. If I were to pronounce that an object is "cool" then the chances are that I would mean that it is below room temperature - but if my daughter were to pronounce an object "cool" then the chances are that it would be the latest 'in thing'. Confusing? In theory maybe, in practice not really. Of course, the standards for word definitions (which, for the sake of simplicity, I'll call dictionaries) do describe multiple common uses of individual words (including examples of their contextual usage, if they're any good).
Pete, I recognise that you favour combining symbols with language markings until there has been considerable training as to the correct meaning of what each symbol means. You do not say who should perform this training nor what the acceptance criteria should be. Of course, the manufacturer could explain in their instructions for the user what the various symbols mean - but of course you could reply that not everyone reads the manuals and manuals get lost and are not always passed on to second users: all of which is in part true. It is also true that many of us live in multi-cultural societies. In England not everyone reads or speaks British English and in the USA not everyone reads or speaks American English, so simply providing textural warnings in English (of either sort) in these two countries will also not cover 100% of the population. If your argument is that symbols are no use without warning text to explain their meaning then having a symbol with an explanatory in a language you don't understand is no use either. All, So what answer do we have? Perhaps we are looking in the wrong place. After all, when the folks in SiFi movies get transported to some strange alien planet and come across a black and metallic device in a cavern that is covered with flashing lights, it never seems to take them long to work out which buttons to press in order to get back home again. Perhaps all we really need then is a device that can instantly analyse our DNA left on the appropriate button, predict the range of possible languages we are likely to understand, and then project this information to us via some suitable imaging device. Of course, this would really just be a stop-gap until we can work out how to transmit the information telepathically and do without the visual imaging device and perhaps the need for a universal translator. Until the above utopian dream comes about we are faced with living in an imperfect world. Neither symbols nor text based information will ever get through to 100% of the population. Convert everyone on earth to speak a single language? Well, why not, every Klingon speaks just one language - right? I'm sure I'll be out-voted on this one, but give me the proper British version of English rather than that upstart American version any day! Over and out, Richard Hughes. This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Dave Heald: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] Archive is being moved, we will announce when it is back on-line. All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
