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Re: communicating



Sorry Jack, you are simply obscuring the essential issue with a trivial
query about singular and plural...the issue stands, whether one person is
communicating or several are...lets stick to the issue.

cheers

On Mon, 25 Nov 1996,
JACK L. URETSKY
(C) 1996; HEP DIV., ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB, ARGONNE, IL 60439 wrote:

Hi all-
In regard to the barbarisms:
***************************************************************
I'm not being flippant in my comment. I am a lover of the language and an
opponent of efforts to make it less useful. The original form was this:

Unless the sender gets back something by which
to judge the quality of the communication, the sender is acting in a way
that satisfies themselves but have little to do with what they want
communicated.
*****************************
Are you trying to say:
Unless the senders get back something by which to judge
the quality of the communication, the senders are acting in a way
that satisfies themselves but have little to do with what they
want communicated;
or
Unless the sender gets back something by which to judge
the quality of the communication, the sender is acting in a way
that satisfies oneself but has little to do with what one wanted
to communicate ?

It is important that pronouns agree with their antecedents in
number and gender so that thare in no ambiguity about which pronoun
belongs to which antecedent.
Barbarisms tend to detract from the credibility of the writer.
I have noted over the years that the better physicists are often
spectacularly good writers.
I spend time with my students on good English usage, and when
I write I keep a dictionary by my side.
Regards,
Jack