On Mon, 2007-11-26 at 12:01 -0600, Dave Ihnat wrote: > On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 10:30:02AM -0700, Craig White wrote: > > there is a whole generation coming up that uses text messaging as a > > primary means of communication. Text messaging eschews > > spelling/punctuation/grammar as functionally unimportant to > > communications. > > And there are entire regions of the US where colloquial English doesn't > sound like something someone from another region can understand. > (It's even worse in England--try understanding someone with a thick > Cockney accent.) Not that there's anything wrong with that--EXCEPT when > you want to compete and participate in the common community. > > > If we were talking about writing papers for school, there might be a > > valid point for raising issues about spelling, punctuation and grammar. > > No--there's never any excuse for sloppiness. Sloppy expression indicates > either an inability or an unwillingness to spend the time and effort on > detail. This translates to carelessness in other areas of effort. > > > If the self appointed school marms would find some other place to > > practice their craft, it would be appreciated...it's not needed here. > > For what it's worth--I have thrown resumes on the scrap heap if they > aren't intelligible. I didn't read more than a couple of lines into the > original post because it looked like rambling garble. If you can't reach > the target audience--be it volunteers for a project, a client, or an > employer--you've failed in your mission. > > People, you can argue all you want about the lack of need for proper > communication, but it's an old and losing proposition. I went to IIT in > the '70s, and the engineers almost bragged about their inability to write. > They found that attitude a hindrance on graduation. > > I'd thought we'd gotten rid of that by the late '70s, but then there > were a whole generation of posters on the early USENET who tried to push > "phonetic English", deliberately misspelling words and using alternate > grammar, claiming--as has been claimed in this thread--that 'proper' > English isn't needed. That died out (thankfully!). > > I can't use a developer or field engineer who can't communicate clearly > and concisely in either written or spoken language. Someone may be the > hottest jock on the block, but there are a lot of other hot jocks who > CAN speak and write in a manner that doesn't alienate or confuse clients. > > Feel free to espouse your view, but also be prepared to lose a job or > contract opportunity, or to be ignored. > > Now let's get back to topics more central to Fedora. ---- great we now have Gene, Frank and Dave as list moms. knock yourselves out guys, you will really be performing a valuable service to the fedora-list by making sure that those who misspell, grammatically fracture the language, etc. are summarily dismissed - even banished from the list if necessary. Craig
