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Re: Spelling and Grammar in our e-mails



In his recent Phys-L post titled "Re: Spelling and Grammar in our
e-mails," Bernard Cleyet (2003) wrote:

"This . . .[Herb Gottlieb's (2003) objection to spelling and grammar
in e-mails]. . . is a another déjà vu. It's a fight between the
prescriptivists and the descriptivists. The young as a rebellion are
descriptivists. (A rather harmless form of rebellion which should be
fought, so as to prevent their switching to a more lethal form, e.g.
Marin Taliban.) Another example is lit and lighted, however the dict.
(mine, of course) distinguishes them -- they have sl. diff. uses."

Bernard's use of "dict." and "sl. diff." suggests that he himself may
be one of those rebellious descriptivists (RD's) who "should be
fought, so as to prevent their switching to a more lethal form."

If so, here an anti-RD sally:

If RD's wish to save themselves time and effort by writing "dict."
and "sl. diff.", and then saving even more time by hitting the reply
button in private emails among themselves, why worry?

But RD's might weigh their own concerns against those of list
subscribers and think twice before inflicting upon them:

a. enigmatic abbreviations such as "dict." and sl. diff.",

b. posts repeated over > and over >> and over >>> again, as at the
end of the redundant Cleyet (2003) [not to mention the redundant
Gottlieb (2003)].

Suggestion #5 of my ignored "Posting Suggestions (Hake 2002) is:

"5. Quote or repeat only the relevant sections of the post to which
you are responding and not the complete post (as may occur when you
hit the "reply" button - THE FINGER-JERK HIT-REPLY-BUTTON SYNDROME IS
THE BANE OF DISCUSSION LISTS. It litters the list with superfluous
already posted once ">", twice ">>", thrice ">>>", etc., etc.
material. Why can't list members take the few extra seconds to copy
and paste addresses in the 'To' and 'cc' slots?"


Richard Hake from Woodland Hills (wher don unstand new langage)
Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>

REFERENCES
Cleyet, B. 2003. "Re: Spelling and Grammar in our e-mails," Phys-L post of
8 Mar 2003 08:04:02-0800; online at
<http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0303&L=phys-l&F=&S=&P=8128>.

Gottleib, H.H. 2003. "Spelling and Grammar in our e-mails," Phys-L post of
8 Mar 2003 07:54:13-0500; online at
<http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0303&L=phys-l&F=&S=&P=7687>.
"These days the youngsters seem to be taking even wider liberties in
their use of their English grammar. Have you ever seen their e-mails
to each other?"

Hake, R.R. 2002. "Bad URL? & THIRTEEN POSTING SUGGESTIONS," AERA-D
post of 17 Oct 2002 11:14:50-0700; online at
<http://lists.asu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0210&L=aera-d&P=R3188>.