Irritant venting

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Dave Dixon
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by Dave Dixon »

Dale,
YOU'RE on the same side of the fence as I am concerning this matter. I agree with YOUR points. THERE are often times that THEY'RE not correct in THEIR usage of some of these similar words. I TOO, feel that more than TWO posters of this forum could use better grammAr when posting TO this group.
Of course I still have to think twice when using WHO, WHOM, WHOEVER, and WHOMEVER....
Enough from this NUT, back to VOLTS now!
Regards,
Dave
BTW - Newer users - you can edit a post after sending it! I am forced to do this often, and do it without shame.<p>[ May 17, 2005: Message edited by: Dave Dixon ]</p>
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by Will »

If sloppy English floats your boat that's OK - as long as you don't want to get a job where you are required to write specifications which are technically and legally correct.<p>Reminds me of the World War I (When communications were'nt too sophisticated ) English story - A message was sent back from a forward battle unit to HQ and its content read " Going to advance - send re-inforcements" After passing through several levels of verbal transition, despatch riders etc. it arrived at HQ reading " Going to a dance - send three and fourpence " *<p>Three Shillings and Four Pence
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by Yerry »

Silicon: Used in the electronics industry.<p>Silicone: Used in Hollywood.<p>I have a nephew who's quite proud that he can't spell. Unfortunately, he's had a sucession of CAD/drafting jobs, one right after another, because of it. He'd last until they got tired of his spelling. One ex-employer actually asked him to please spell his name right on his termination papers.<p>Funny thing; nowadays it's easy to work for someone you never meet in person-- your reputation and image is derived from memos, notes, and the like. If you can't spell, that reputation suffers. Also, anyone that can't be bothered to even try probably won't try to do their job right either-- even if your own attitude isn't like that, if the boss believes so, you're screwed.<p>Personally, I'm more concerned about grammar far more than spelling, especially on a BB where everything's typed (typos vs. spelling). How many posts here have the first reply being something along the line of "What are you trying to say?"
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Chris Smith
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by Chris Smith »

I could write a thousand word dissertation on the subject of why English is so hard to get right. <p>English is not an easy language, and its full of loop holes and reasons why it is inconsistent and hard to remember. <p>IE before C or after a letter, except, and & but ... where the exceptions out number the rules. No reason for this, no logic, and no rhyme. <p>Your, Your’ You’re and all the other short cuts are the most commonly abused words that really have no reason to exist in the first place. <p>And the apostrophe is not needed in any form of short hand to begin with. Your is just as good as You’re and shorter and easier to read. <p>And I already know what you mean, and Im not anally retentive enough to care. <p> English has more words that sound exactly the same, yet are spelled differently. <p>In flammable in proper English states that it is “not” or “non’ combustible, yet it means danger, it will explode or catch fire. <p>In is non, except when its arbitrary. <p>And the list goes on.<p>Fish can be spelled Photi, and still be proper according to the rules.<p>Ph is F [photo] ........Ti is sh, [nation] and o is often sounding like the letter I in many words. <p>There are several complete web pages stating the reasons for English being hard and why so many never get it right, but that isn’t the point.<p> Content, not form,.... is important, and if a small misspelling drives you away, then you lose, not the author.<p>At what point do we accept the mis spelled words?
When you can understand them. <p>Are we turning out morons, I don’t know, I suspect we start with morons and sometimes we win and they pass the class. <p>Einstein failed math, so are we to judge he too was a moron, or just didn’t care?<p> English is only as good as the effort behind it, and as I recall growing up, English class had no resemblance to my speech or normal life. It Was anally retentive.<p>The only real rules of English that mattered was could I communicate? We only learn and remember the words that matter to our life, while the rest made the teacher happy and no one else. <p>Learning proper English is not about learning the rules, it about learning all the exceptions to the rules which are utter nonsense to begin with. It’s a bad language to begin with. And I learned three different "english" versions. American, Australian, and English. <p>The only time I will criticize anyone’s English skill is in comprehension [A two way thang], if you don’t get your message across, you Do suck. But I wont hold it against you. <p>And then there is the Slang Thang.<p>And capitol letters,... don’t even get me started there, typing is another skill that we all must learn but not all at once.<p> And then there is punctuation, also not that important unless your expressing an Idea that must be separated from the rest of the passage. <p>But then brackets and quotations work well here also. <p>And then we could get into the Queens or Kings English, and all of you here would be wrong. <p>Im an engineer, not a English major, and engineers enjoy the comfort of knowing that all engineers suck at English. <p>Some worse than others. And were still happy and not self conscious about our spelling. <p>When we stop talking, we all lose, so dont make up pety excuses for not talking or communicating.
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Dave Dixon
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by Dave Dixon »

Chris,
Very well written. You were only 404 words short of one thousand :)
I agree in general, but do get tired of viewing letters, or posts that have poor grammAr, or lousy spelling out of sheer laziness. We all make mistakes in spelling/grammer and commit typos, which never annoys me. I am concerned that the schools are graduating kids without the "basics" of to, too, and two though. I learned that in grade school!<p>I watched a program about students at a school for test pilots. Some of the very best aviators failed the class. They were unable to reliably communicate their findings/experiences with the engineers. Kinda <slang> makes you think!
Regards,
Dave<p>[ May 17, 2005: Message edited by: Dave Dixon ]</p>
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by jollyrgr »

I will probably get flamed for this one....<p>You just went through surgery and the doctor prescribed OxyContin for the pain. But instead he writes Oxytocin on the prescription pad. These are spelled "almost" the same. Both are pharmaceuticals. Isn't that "close enough"? But there is a major difference. OxyContin is a narcotic used to control pain. Oxytocin is a synthetic hormone used to start labor and control post delivery bleeding. It is also used to aid lactation.<p>Would you say to the doctor that what he did was okay because the words were "close enough". Or would you be suing him for medical malpractice?
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by Will »

Chris,
I can't disagree with you. If you don't need good English skills then there may be no point in pursuing them. . . . Comprehension is the important thing. In your penultimate paragraph you say ' Some worse than others. And WERE still happy and . . . .'
As to WERE, did you mean the suppletive singular past subjunctive of BE . . i.e. that only the SOME who were worse than others are still happy or did you mean WE'RE i.e. used as a pronoun of the first person plural and indicating that the 'happy' group included yourself ? If you used 'were' and 'we're' interchangeably in engineering contracts then it could cost someone a lot of money. Nevertheless . . on the whole. . .in partial agreement with Dave, your letter was fairly well written.
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Chris Smith
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by Chris Smith »

I doubt you missed my point or bad grammar Will.
I hate the hyphenated B.S. and so leave it out as a matter of habit.
I actually program my computer to read my phonetic spelling, and hope IT picks the right word, and then rely on windex to finish off the other wrong words because when My reading glasses are smeared, to hell with it all I say! Oh my? <p>And doctors who cant write, all have bad penmanship any way but some how manage to fumble through their prescripts and only kill off a few of us each day, regardless of spelling Latin, which is not English. <p>Substance, not form, will keep us communicating.<p>And really bad english will be mostly ignored because we wont have a choice, we wont know what it says?
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by jwax »

Maybe it's just me, but this thread has gone from irrelevant and mundane to incredibly boring. Perhaps the technical genius here could find a more related forum than this to pander their philosophies?
Go to an English usage forum and discuss IGBT's vs. FETS. Scheesh! :(
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philba
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by philba »

When I read a post with one or two misspellings, I ignore them. When the number reaches 4 to 5, I start thinking the poster didn't do that well in school, is sloppy and, perhaps, doesn't know what he is talking about. When there is more than one misspelling per sentence, I think the guy is a clown. When there is no sentence structure and lots of misspellings, I think the guy is an idiot. Some where along that progression, I write the poster off as a waste of time. I doubt I'm the only one that does this.<p>I've read a lot of resumes in my career and when there are spelling errors, I am much more critical of the person. Not because spelling is a key aspect of software development but because they didn't "sweat the details" which is a key requirement for working for me.<p>If you want your posting to be read by a receptive person, make your writing clear and your spelling correct. But frankly, I like it when they quickly help me understand that it's not worth spending the time on. <p>BTW: its vs it's. If "it's" can be replaced with "it is" or "it has" then the apostrophe belongs there. It's a common error.
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Chris Smith
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by Chris Smith »

I think most here do their best with what they have, and English shouldn’t be a judgment on their interest in science, a separate subject of learning all together. <p>I know I didn’t give a hoot for English in HS, as it detracted from my life and interests in life, which happened to be science. <p>Lets not toss out the baby with the bath water, and give them all a chance.
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by terri »

Funny how anyone who can't handle details calls anyone who can, "retentive."<p>Some of us have a passion for precision which has no Freudian implications. We just like to be sure we understand something and can convey that understanding with exactitude.<p>A casual typo or transposition is one thing, but carelessness about carelessness is not too forgiveable. I always mispell "company" as "comapny," for example, yet I exert much effort to eliminate this error in my writing. And it goes beyond merely "Dear sir or madame. I would like to work for your comapny." It goes to the care you take in all your endeavors.<p>I recognize that some of us are unfortunate in our abilities to spell, but it is not necessarily their fault. It is largely the fault of the schooling we get, where teachers are afraid to enforce precision of thought and precision of spelling, and to teach mental focusing.<p>I edit my posts maybe three or four times to make sure I get them right (of course some booboos still escape once in a while.)<p>Why?<p>Not because I'm "retentive."<p>But because I take pride in my work, and frankly I resent anybody "copping out" on their own inadequacies by calling my efforts "retentive."<p>[ May 17, 2005: Message edited by: terri ]</p>
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dr_when
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by dr_when »

Chris...just curious.<p>You claim to be an Engineer. Do people pay you to be one? Are you such an excellent engineer that the people who hired you don't mind if they have to sift through hundreds of mispellings and lousy grammer on your reports? Or don't you ever have to write a report? <p>Funny, I can't think of one company that would hire someone who cannot spell, for an engineering job. The devil is in the details (as Philba hinted). If you treat spelling and grammer as unimportant, how much precision will you apply to math and science and experiments and testing? Not much, I'm sure.<p>But of course, you are like Einstein. You do such great things that everyone will forgive you if you communicate like a hillbilly. My company would probably have a problem with hiring you to take out the trash.
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by terri »

It's grammar.<p>[ May 17, 2005: Message edited by: terri ]</p>
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Dave Dixon
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Re: Irritant venting

Post by Dave Dixon »

Thanks Terri,
I can't believe I made that mistake on too separate posts! ;) I've corrected them!
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