Language and Terminology
Warning, Caution, Note
Definition
What Warning, Caution, Note Means
Under ANSI Z535.6, DANGER, WARNING and CAUTION all concern injury to a person and differ only in severity, while NOTICE covers property damage. In DoD technical manuals the long-standing convention is different: WARNING for personnel, CAUTION for equipment, NOTE for emphasis.
So CAUTION means people in one rule book and equipment in the other. A team writing for both markets is running two conventions that share a vocabulary, and the failure mode is applying the right rule from the wrong standard.
Also written: warnings and cautions, ANSI Z535.6, signal words
Nearby
Related Terms
The controlled language specification for technical documentation: about sixty-five writing rules plus a dictionary where each word has one meaning.
MIL-STD-38784The DoD standard practice for the general style and format of technical manuals, currently at Revision B, issued in 2020 and free from ASSIST.
CIRS1000D data modules that hold shared definitions once, such as parts, tools, warnings and terms, so thousands of procedures reference one source.
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