Название: Английский язык

Жанр: Филология

Рейтинг:

Просмотров: 2939

Getting to know your synchronized input shaft

by Noel Perrin

(A Review of The 1990 Chevrolet S-10 Owner's Manual and The 1990 Buick LeSabre Owner's Manual)

Two new books from the General Motors Corporation suggest that the tradition of owner's manuals supplied by car manufacturers is undergoing profound change. One book is confusing, hard to read, cheaply

produced on poor-quality paper — just what a manual ought to be. But the other looks good and reads better.  It often — no, usually — gives directions that can be followed by an ordinary untrained person. At a time when literacy is plunging and many college freshmen are having to be taught to write a simple

declarative sentence, any evidence of clarity in writing is cause for celebration. Furthermore, both G.M. manuals show a rudimentary sense of social responsibility, which is almost as revolutionary a change as the use of clear prose. Considering that both would also easily make bestseller lists if bookstoreshandled them

(each has more than 100,000 copies in print), they deserve a review.

«1990 Chevrolet S-10 Owner's Manual» mostly upholds the old tradition. Its confusingly numbered pages (typical page number: 2D-6) attempt to cover not one but three different Chevrolet models: the Blazer

20 and two varieties of light truck.This makes for difficulties. Suppose you get a flat tire in your Blazer or your regular pickup or your extended-cab pickup. In each the jack is stored in a different place, so that it can require a thorough study of pages 3-9 through 3-12 just to find out where to look for it (and how to extract

25 it when found). By a piece of inspired bad planning, these four pages of instructions for finding your jack come after the directions for changing a tire. The owner, already sullen because of the flat, may be tempted to hurl the jack, when it finally is found, through the optional sliding rear window. That, of course, would

30 be a mistake. Windows are complicated enough in the manual already. If you own a Blazer, you waste your time when you read the instructions for swingout windows — they are to be found only in the extended-cab truck. Roughly a third of the manual will be mere distraction for any given owner. That leaves two-thirds

that still applies. By no means will all of this be of much help to the average person, however. Suppose you have bought a Blazer and are intent on discovering how the four-wheel

drive system works. Here is part of what you will learn: «The system has a transfer case with synchronized input shaft, and a differential unit with central locking cluch and connect/disconnect control.»

Or what if you glance at the section on operating the defroster?'Your appalled eye will come on this:

45 «The windshield defrosting and defogging system provides visibility through designated areas of the windshield during inclement weather conditions.»

«The 1990 Buick Le Sabre Owner's Manual» is strikingly different. None of it applies only to light

50 trucks or only to some other kind of Buick. All of it is about the LeSabre. Better yet, virtually all of it is readable. Have to change a flat? «The equipment you'll need is in the trunk.» Ah, but suppose you've never touched a jack in your life, aren't even sure what one looks like. The manual is prepared. It expected that. It

55 contains 26 color photographs that sequentially picture the changing of a tire. (The first two are cameo shots of the jack and of the wheel wrench.) Each action shot is accompanied by simple directions. Typical direction: «Take off the nuts. Keep them near you.» A visiting Martian, if taught English and given the manual, could probably change a LeSabre tire.

The most surprising thing in either manual, though, is the acknowledgement that Buicks and Blazers do  not exist in a vacuum — that they move through the air of this planet and are quite capable of polluting it.

 Both contain a piece of formal advice from General Motors: mix 10 percent ethanol with your gasoline, if you possibly can, because this will «contribute to cleaner air.»

But here, too, LeSabre is ahead. Both manuals also urge you not to pour your used motor oil down a

70 drain or dump it on the ground. The S-10 manual doesn't say why; it just says don't do it. But the brave, though anonymous, author of LeSabre gives a reason. «Used oil can be a real threat to the environment», the manual forthrightly says.

When Buick manuals begin to express concern for the environment, can spring be far behind?

Exercise:

1. What makes the Buick manual better than the Chevrolet?

2. In what way/s are both better than previous manuals?