[Evolved]

They may be indistinguishable but common sense still applies when asking for clarification. For example, I work with folks of a certain intellect where I have to ask very specific and pointed questions that do not contain substantial detail in each question in order to clarify something or to get an answer I need.

When that conversation happened, it should have ended with, "just to clarify, I should, or should not, use organic cat litter?" That would have cleared it up.

Furthermore, “It would have been much clearer if they had said an inorganic zeolite sorbent,” Hobbs says.

Wouldn't one argue that a better way to explain it would be to specify nonorganic kitty litter since that would clear up any confusion whether written or spoken?

[kevhito]

How about not sending a non-expert to the grocery store with a post-it note for supplies when packaging radioactive material for long-term storage. Besides, "organic" when in the grocery store means something completely different any way -- ironically, the organic (wheat-based) product could easily be "non-organic" (meaning not certified to avoid certain pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), while the non-organic (clay-based) product might be labeled "organic" (meaning no pesticides).

Really, how about having a specific written signoff procedure in place, where all supplies must be checked before purchase by a trained expert who knows the difference between organic and inorganic / clay vs wheat, signed off in writing against a checklist developed by experts, then checked again by a separate trained expert when delivered with another signoff, then checked again by a third export when actually used.

[DanBC]

> how about having a specific written signoff procedure in place, where all supplies must be checked before purchase by a trained expert who knows the difference between organic and inorganic / clay vs wheat, signed off in writing against a checklist developed by experts, then checked again by a separate trained expert when delivered with another signoff, then checked again by a third export when actually used.

Multiple inspection is a known failure point. A thinks any errors they make will be caught by B and C. B thinks A knows what s/he's doing, and thinks any errors that slip by B will be caught by C. C thinks A and B know what they're doing and so no errors will have reached C.

The boss that recruited A, B, and C to their position pulled the most accurate workers from the shop floor - because you need the inspectors to be better than the shop floor.

Thus quality of product supplied to inspection is reduced; the inspectors are now very busy; and that leads them to shift product through (someone else will catch it; someone else has already caught the problems).

What you need is to give an accurate instruction, and to give people to halt if they're unclear what's meant.

[jschwartzi]

We could call this process "receiving inspection" and have dedicated staff who perform this inspection who follow some type of written "work instruction" to inspect the receipt before approval.

[nkurz]

Wouldn't one argue that a better way to explain it would be to specify nonorganic kitty litter since that would clear up any confusion whether written or spoken?

I don't know. Spoken, "a nonorganic" doesn't strike me as clearly better than "an inorganic" at differentiating from "an organic". Perhaps if you knew in advance the qualififications of the intended recipient, but in a safety specification like this, you may not know much about who will be (mis)interpreting the directive. Specifying "an inorganic zeolite sorbent" in the context of nuclear waste may make it more likely that someone who isn't sure about the meaning of one of those terms will seek clarification. By contrast, I'd worry that specifying "nonorganic kitty litter" would increase the chances that someone will just ignore the essential qualifier.

Worse, the word "organic" is overloaded, and means different things to the general public than to chemists. Juxtaposing the chemical meaning with the vernacular "kitty litter" increases the likelihood that someone will misinterpret, especially when "nonorganic" is more commonly associated with marketing and "inorganic" with chemistry. In cases like this where a seemingly innocuous detail is actually of critical importance, it needs to be emphasis and redundancy. The oft-quoted rule of "omit needless words" is more applicable to fiction and journalism than to safety specifications. For something as crucially important as this, I probably would suggest something like "a chemically inorganic sorbent, such as a 'kitty litter' made from zeolite clay".

[everybodyknows]

Just such a linguistic difficulty seems to have played out with "flammable". I remember seeing until a few years back gasoline trucks labeled "INFLAMMABLE". No more.

[nathanvanfleet]

It seems so obvious to us, especially in hindsight. But I reject the notion that it's so obvious "anyone" would question something like this. If an expert says something directly and you are quite sure they said X and not Y, you are not likely to question it. You heard it from the horses mouth. I think that the speaker should try and emphasize INorganic or say it in a clearer way "non-organic" just to drive the point home.

[dunmalg]

>the speaker should try and emphasize INorganic or say it in a clearer way

The root problem here is that while the speaker may have been an expert in handling nuclear materials, they were not ALSO an expert in communication. The failure was the presumption that an expert can clearly communicate their domain knowledge across an expertise gap. Communication is a skill unto itself, one that often gets handwaved. People just assume they're good communicators because they can assemble a grammatically correct sentence. My wife is an editor. If I had a nickel for every time she's come home with a story about yet another coworker who claimed they "already edited their own paper and it just needs a quick look-over" and then handed her an incomprehensible mess, I'd have a lot of nickels.

[pmarreck]

I don't think it's a good assumption that someone who hears "inorganic" or "an organic" would automatically consider the other.

[elipsey]

>> a better way to explain it would be to specify nonorganic

Exactly. Also, it turns out flammable and inflammable mean the same thing -- I sure learned that one the hard way!