: Re: Can basic grammar rules be skipped when writing text for machine safety labels? First of all I'm completely against this idea but a few people who contribute to the technical documentation project

@Cugini967

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I really like this question. I cringe to say it, but I somewhat agree about breaking grammar rules in the interest of safety. I frequently write technical emails/IT system announcements that are sent out to a large group of non-technical people and I find that if I write the emails using the same language that I'd write in my short stories, or even my technical diagrams, then nobody will read them.

Machine safety labels - any safety labels - need to get to the point... Right Now! The fewer words the better, and the simpler the better because you're working to do two things:

Keep people from getting hurt.
Keep the company from getting sued because someone got hurt.

I'd love it if safety labels were grammatically correct, but I think they just wouldn't be as safe then.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Please do not touch the violently spinning wires in the wire rope
machine in front of you as they may cause certain parts of your body
to become separated from the rest of your body, or in the event that
your different body parts do not separate, your whole body may be
pulled into the machine. Either way, a gruesome, bloody, painful
death will occur and everybody will be sad.

Thank you, and good luck.

Management.

Edit: If you're looking for specific legal advice about this... I'm just a writer and a computer geek... You should ask your company's lawyer and then write the labels whatever they say is the correct way. Your lawyer is going to have specific knowledge about your industry and about the risks involved and will probably be quite happy to put in their two cents.

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