This was going to be an article on how writers on computer security misuse the term “social engineering.” However, my research quickly showed that the tech usage has almost completely displaced the original meaning. When that happens, it’s useless to say it’s wrong.
An example of the original usage can be found on encyclopedia.com under “Large Scale Social Engineering”:
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It surprises me how many writers don’t understand how links work. Here’s a brief guide on some technical (but not too technical) points.
Understanding HTML isn’t essential to writing an article. Usually you work in an editor that takes care of those details. But you can’t get around understanding links. A link uses a uniform resource locator or URL. Here’s what it looks like:
https://www.example.com/path/file
When you don’t see people face to face and all your interactions are by phone or over the Internet, life can take on an unreal quality. It feels as if we’re living virtual lives, not real ones. Maybe that’s why writers put the adjective “virtual” on virtually everything. Instead of real learning, we have “virtual learning.” There was talk of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates having a “virtual debate,” apparently in lieu of actually debating. Yet perversely, people we barely know on Facebook are “friends,” not “virtual friends.”
We need to hang on to the reality of life. The term “virtual” means being not quite something or being simulated. If something is “virtually impossible,” it still has a glimmer of possibility.
Many things are now simulated on the Internet because we can’t do them in real life; there are virtual meetings, virtual classrooms, virtual attendance, etc. That’s legitimate. But the outcomes ought to be real. Virtual classrooms should result in real learning, or what’s the point? Distance doesn’t make things less real. People have debated by correspondence for thousands of years; why does distance suddenly make debates “virtual”?
The word “virtual” is an antonym of “literal.” Maybe the long history of abusing “literal” has made the abuse of its opposite inevitable. If you can say someone “literally exploded” when there was no explosion, then why not say you “virtually learned” when you actually learned?
“Virtual,” like “algorithm,” is a trendy word to stick everywhere because it makes the writer sound computer-smart. But it’s virtual smartness, just the appearance of it. Let’s hold on to what’s real in life and not dismiss everything we do at a distance as “virtual.”
Yesterday I came upon this video by Steven Pinker. It’s simply the best video talk on writing I’ve ever seen, and I recommend it to all nonfiction writers. (Fiction writers too, but that’s not its main focus.)
“The number A is exponentially greater than the number B!” What does this mean? Nearly nothing. If it has a meaning, it’s that there’s some number x such that Bx = A. But that’s true of any two numbers, as long as they’re both greater than 1 and A > B. Please don’t use that expression in your writing.
You could also say that A is “linearly greater” or “quadratically greater” than B. They’re just as true and just as meaningless. “Exponentially greater” sounds more impressive because exponential curves rise really fast. In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of cases followed something close to an exponential curve. But a single data point doesn’t establish a curve.
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Every URL starts with a protocol, a name which identifies how it should be processed. The name is followed by “://”. On the Web, it’s almost always either HTTP or HTTPS. The protocol name is followed by the character sequence “://”, to the annoyance of people entering it on a phone or tablet. The browser may let you leave it out when typing, but it has to guess it for you. When you create a link in an HTML page, you always have to include the protocol, e.g., https://www.example.com.
The difference between the two is that HTTPS provides security and HTTP doesn’t. An HTTPS link uses the TLS (transport layer security) communication protocol, which often goes under the obsolete name of SSL. In common usage, SSL and TLS mean the same thing. It gives you three advantages over plain HTTP:
A lot of would-be authors don’t understand the difference between an accent and a dialect. An accent is a way of pronouncing words. A dialect is a way of choosing and arranging words which characterizes a subgroup of a language’s speakers. Writing in a dialect is legitimate in fiction or when quoting real people. Trying to write an accent is usually a mistake.
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Links are important in blog posts and Web pages. They give support to statements and lead the reader to further information. They make the page more valuable and trustworthy in the reader’s eyes. Broken links, on the other hand, make a page look dubious and outdated. A writer needs to pay special attention to get the links right.
Links are URLs (Uniform Resource Locators). They consist of a protocol, normally HTTP or HTTPS, plus a domain and a path. They may also contain parameters. For the article you’re reading, the protocol is HTTPS, the domain is garymcgath.com, and the path may vary depending on how you’re viewing the piece. The protocol is a mandatory part of the URL. garymcgath.com is not a URL, and putting it into a link will work only if the server is kind enough to fix it for you. https://garymcgath.com is a URL with an empty path. https://garymcgath.com/wp/blogging is a URL that points at my blog.
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Musical imagery adds a lot to writing when it’s done right. The only trouble is that so many writers get it wrong. They misunderstand the terminology or the capacities of the instruments. Music is a big part of my life, so it especially bothers me when references to music are full of mistakes. Here are a few pointers which could be useful.
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Are you plagued by passive voice phobia? Have you been told that the passive voice must never be used? As an antidote, here are some cases where the passive voice is the best choice. Remember them and don’t let yourself be intimidated!
If it isn’t clear who or what performed the action, you can use a subject such as “something,” “people,” or (as in this sentence) the impersonal “you.” If you’re legally minded, you can say “person or persons unknown.” But leaving the actor out altogether is sometimes the strongest choice. If you work at a help desk and customers have been giving you a rough time, you can yell (preferably while off the phone), “I’ve been abused and insulted enough!” It’s not any particular person you’re blowing up about, but the accumulated abuse.
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