Re: Prefixes (was Re: Gravity and pi)

["Donald E. Simanek" <dsimanek@EAGLE.LHUP.EDU>]

On Sun, 15 Nov 1998, paul o johnson wrote:

> I'm afraid I don't insist that my students follow a style manual when
> composing papers for me to grade, but I do insist that they write
> simple but complete declarative sentences, spell all words correctly,
> and do not abbreviate with as w/. Do I get any credit for that?
>
> poj

In my book, yes you do. That's more than some teachers expect, and more
even than some college and university science profs require. We who see
these students after you have finished with them appreciate anything we
can get.

I forgot to mention a recent example of what happens when (a) students
don't read, (b) teachers don't have high standards for student writing,
and (c) students don't use dictionaries. A student in my upper-level
optics course was giving an oral class presentation on lasers. He spoke of
SPAT-ial coherence, pronouncing the first part to rhyme with "splat". It
took me a bit to realize what he meant. Worse, he had no idea that it
referred to coherence over a distance in *space*. And he didn't realize
that temporal coherence had anything to do with time. In fact, he admitted
to being unsure what "coherence" meant, saying he couldn't understand the
explanations he found in the textbooks he had consulted.

I've always thought the spelling "spatial" to be ugly and inconsistent,
and in my own writing I use "spacial" which my dictionary sanctions as a
legitimate variant of "spatial". But most texts in this country spell it
with the "t". Even this UNIX spell-checker won't accept "spacial", nor
will my WordPerfect spell-checker.

Oh, yes, he's a senior, in the secondary education physics program,
planning to teach physics in high school. His grade-point average is high
enough that he'll be certified (and I'm not to blame for that, I assure
you). Before you point fingers at *our* school, ask yourself whether
you've got any just like him in *your* school who will graduate.

        -- Donald

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Dr. Donald E. Simanek                            Office: 717-893-2079
Professor of Physics                                FAX: 717-893-2048
Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, Lock Haven, PA. 17745
dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu                 http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek
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