Mercurius en de Muzen

In this article some comments are made on research into business communication as a new vogue in applied linguistics (instead of as enrichment in text linguistics). Critical remarks are also made, in terms of cost-benefit analysis, about the difficulties that liberal arts students have in finding a job within a business setting. The main part of this article is devoted to the writing and rewriting of instruction texts, with an example of the instruction for use of a steam iron. The rewriting techniques for clarifying this text are reduced to the suitability principle and maxims like the maxim of motivation and the maxim of disambiguity. Within this theoretical framework the (re)writing of business texts can be more than an activity for the Muses and will be of benefit to Mercury in enhancing the effectivity of instruction manuals and other texts.