On Sat, 11 Nov 2006, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Any ordinary person reading this in a straightforward way would take an instruction to "avoid" doing something as a statement that it is not allowed.
That may be consistent with your view of the "ordinary person", but others may see it differently. Avoidance is a restriction that one applies on one's own self. It does not depend on the imposition of external authority. It favours the exercise of judgement and the ability to know one's own limits.
My point is that anyone who reads that will interpret the *intentions of the writer* to be that the act is not allowed. It doesn't matter what he thinks avoidance is, but what he thinks the policy-maker meant by it.
An outright ban on an activity could easily be stated with less equivocation.,
Policies are full of attempts to state things in "less harsh" language that could easily have been said directly, but weren't. A reader would just think this is another one.