Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: style

Was it real or another "cartoon"? Sorry, my sense of humor
is not as highly developed as it should. By the way, was
your question about the IMHO (in another message today)
real or a joke? In any case, I see that you are:

1) quoting a person who was replying but attributing it,
wrongly, to me.
2) not using the > at the beginning of each quoted line.

I agree on what we are supposed to disagree. People
should use a mailer which does identify quoted lines, or
make an effort to insert the > symbols manually. Absence
of such symbols, in places where they are usually expected,
is particularly annoying in long messages with numerous
long quotations. Your error probably resulted from the
absence of >, when I was quoted.
Ludwik Kowalski

P.S. Are you aware that your messages are "doubled"?
Or is it something badly set on my computer?

paul o johnson wrote:

Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

While I much prefer to see postings which are correct in grammar, spelling, and
punctuation, this is not a medium which always permits the author to fix such
errors.

I think I disagree, Ludwik. My Netscape Communicator 4.51 checks all outgoing
messages for spelling and punctuation, and maybe grammar for all I know. I have
often been chastised for making fun of college professors who post messages
containing poor English, but I contend that it is part of our job to teach our
students how to communicate. Their bosses and customers will expect it of them
when they get out on the job.

God knows I would make a poor English teacher, but I see no reason why physics
teachers should not try to show their students and their peers how to write an
intelligent note or paper. As scientists, we should strive for accuracy and
unambiguousness in our communication. If we continue to let adult poor spellers
off the hook because we don't want to embarrass them, I believe our ability to
express ourselves accurately, as well as our language, will go to hell.

poj
Collin County College

--Boundary_(ID_rHeLXXVwaAvepankp2ZDDQ)
Content-type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
Ludwik Kowalski wrote:
<p><i>While I much prefer to see postings which are correct in grammar,
spelling, and punctuation, this is not a medium which always permits the
author to fix such errors.</i>
<p>I think I disagree, Ludwik. My Netscape Communicator 4.51 checks all
outgoing messages for spelling and punctuation, and maybe grammar for all
I know. I have often been chastised for making fun of college professors
who post messages containing poor English, but I contend that it is part
of our job to teach our students how to communicate. Their bosses and customers
will expect it of them when they get out on the job.
<p>God knows I would make a poor English teacher, but I see no reason why
physics teachers should not try to show their students and their peers
how to write an intelligent note or paper. As scientists, we should strive
for accuracy and unambiguousness in our communication. If we continue to
let adult poor spellers off the hook because we don't want to embarrass
them, I believe our ability to express ourselves accurately, as well as
our language, will go to hell.
<p>poj
<br>Collin County College
<br>&nbsp;</html>

--Boundary_(ID_rHeLXXVwaAvepankp2ZDDQ)--