ian's grammactical rules

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terri
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by terri »

Well, GBS had the literary clout to misuse and make fun of our admittedly bizarre language. But most of us don't.<p>I have the original of my parents' marriage license from early 1939 and an original of my birth certificate more than nine months later.<p>One of these days I'm going to frame them together with the legend: "Despite what you say, this proves I'm not a bastard."<p>Oh, by the way, Mr. Emeritus, I grinned when I thought of this one: If I were an editor of an electronics magazine, I wouldn't pay the writers of some of the stuff on this board. I'd bill them.<p>But I wax snotty now. Sorry.<p>[ May 22, 2005: Message edited by: terri ]</p>
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Dean Huster
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by Dean Huster »

Believe me, Terri, they (Gernsback) didn't pay enough ($250/mo) to justify the time and effort that went into writing a column. There were some months that if you divided the pay by the time spent on the column, I was under minimum wage. I had to do it for fun (and notoriety) in order to justify the time involved. But at least with the published installment, I got an out-of-the-blue e-mail from a guy I'd last seen 26 years earlier. That was a lot of fun.<p>And I'm sure that they'd bill rather than pay me for most of the stuff I write on forums! I think that a lot of that is that my personality's changed over the last three years due to a lot of negative stuff that's been going on. It's strange, because for the first 53 years of my life (assuming that my baby and toddler years were the same as the rest), I was always able to roll with the punches and go on with life. I guess it was those danged AARP mailings that started when I was 50 that triggered it all. They'd let you pay them and join, but you couldn't get any bennies other than the subscription to O.F. Magazine until you were 55. What kind of marketing ploy is that? Made me go over the edge. I'm sure it was the AARP.<p>Wasn't there a Robin Williams movie about them? "The World According to AARP" or something like that? Sounds political.<p>Dean
Dean Huster, Electronics Curmudgeon
Contributing Editor emeritus, "Q & A", of the former "Poptronics" magazine (formerly "Popular Electronics" and "Electronics Now" magazines).

R.I.P.
terri
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by terri »

"The world according to AARP." I like that one.<p>Hang in there. I figure I've had two or three times in my life that were totally hassle-free for a longish period, say a year or so. When I tell folks this they say I was lucky.<p>Right now I'm a little frosted over 'cause when I got my first Social Security Card in 1956 the deal I made with the dot-gov was that I'd get full bennies at sixty five.<p>Somewhere along the line they reneged on their part of the deal, and now I have to wait until I'm 65 1/2.<p>With my life style (falling off horses, motorcycles, and bicycles, etc, etc), I frankly never expected to live this long --ne'erthless, it's a major irk.<p>I wrote a couple of spec articles myself and I agree --if you do anything beyond the slap-dash, it's not a real paying proposition. I'm toying with the idea of writing an article on Single Sideband Theory (I'm Elmering a young man to his General Class, which engendered the article idea) but now that you mention it, maybe I'll leave it at verbal instruction to him and forget about formalizing it. Too bad. Most people can't get past the hump from heterodyning a CW signal to heterodyning a band of side speech frequencies, and this article would show where the hump is and how to jump over it.<p>I guess the trick to making writing articles a real paying proposition is to work from freelancing into "on assignment," then to a staff position, and then to an editorial position. I was doing this article-writing while I was in college, but I finally got a rush of brains to the head and realized how much "homework" was required to get into the "profit domain." <p>Still, it was nice to get the checks, and even nicer to see my byline. All this was in the late sixties. <p>Sooo, as I said.... hang in there. Neggies come, neggies go. As I like to say, "Yang Happens."<p>[ May 22, 2005: Message edited by: terri ]</p>
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Dean Huster
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by Dean Huster »

I don't know about the editorial part there, Terri. The editor's name on most magazines in the trade and hobby always seemed to change quarterly. I went through two editors during my "tenure" at Poptronics and the second one seemed to be a principle in the magazine's final corkscrew into the earth. I think the first one (Joe Suda) saw the writing on the wall and got out while the ship was still afloat.<p>Dean
Dean Huster, Electronics Curmudgeon
Contributing Editor emeritus, "Q & A", of the former "Poptronics" magazine (formerly "Popular Electronics" and "Electronics Now" magazines).

R.I.P.
Enzo
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by Enzo »

But Dean, you might have been adapted. Are you sure they are your biographical parents.<p>There used to be a billboard in town that said "Illiterate? Call call 1-800...." My wife and I find that funny. WHo would it help?<p>By the way there is an excellent little book titled Innumeracy by Paulos. Innumeracy is his word for the math equivalent of illiteracy. It is very readable and not really al that mathy. It discusses comon ways people misunderstand math in daily life.
2M MACHINING
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by 2M MACHINING »

To much gas,it's going to blow.
2M MACHINING
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by 2M MACHINING »

To much gas,it's going to blow.
John Brown
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by John Brown »

The word "numeracy" was actually invented by British prime minister Harold MacMillan, so I guess you should also credit him with "innumeracy".
I like to think of language as an instrument, and as such I think it's worthwhile to try and play to the best of one's ability.
I would be very reluctant to hire someone who didn't know how to use puntuation correctly, as I know how one misplaced semi-colon can wreak havoc in C programming. Using "were" instead of "we're", for example, can make for difficult reading.
If there's a right way and a wrong way do do something, surely it's better to do it the right way.
Dean Huster
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by Dean Huster »

I think it was Gallagher (the watermelon-bashing comedian) who made a similar comment about the sign on the post office door: "No dogs allowed, except those for the blind".<p>Punctuation is changing, also. I remember being taught in school that lists, such as yellow, green, red, blue, and purple had a comma following the penultimate* list item before the "and". Then in the 1970s, that changed, at least as far as newspaper, book, magazine, tabloid and press release practice to eliminating that comma. Now it seems that we're back to the original method again. I kind of liked not having that last comma before the "and" myself.<p>Dean<p>*look that up in your Funk & Wagnell's (remember "Laugh In"?)
Dean Huster, Electronics Curmudgeon
Contributing Editor emeritus, "Q & A", of the former "Poptronics" magazine (formerly "Popular Electronics" and "Electronics Now" magazines).

R.I.P.
Enzo
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by Enzo »

I recall as a kid there was controversy as to whether that fina comma should be used. I always use it. If someone wanted to contest a will, a distinction could be made between "Share my estate equally with Bob, Mary, and John." and "Share my estate equally with Bob, MAry and John." In the first each gets a third, while in the second Bob gets half and MAry and John get the other half, or a quarter each in other words.<p>I am personally on a crusade to eliminate the semi-colon. I don't see that it serves a purpose. I have never seen a sentence where using a comma in its place obscured the meaning. Besides, I love overruling the spellchecker on it.
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Dave Dixon
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by Dave Dixon »

I say "Say Goodnight, Dean".
You say "Goodnight Dean".
Bernius1
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by Bernius1 »

Dean, the poem and sentiments are all great. I think Dr_when hit a valid point when he posed " 2b^!2b ", because it's a logical problem. At first reading ( and that too fast ) I thought he wrote '2b or |2b|', and said ' That's it ! The misspellers think in absolute values ! That's how they accept error as fact !"
My only peeve is punctuating plural's to make them possessive's. How many signs have you seen that say " Please don't block door's " ?? It's a matter of self discipline, like a fad diet or baking a cake; You've got to DO IT FULLY, or live with second rate results.
*RunDLL32 /u soapbox.dll **
Can't we end all posts with a comical quip?
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Chris Smith
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by Chris Smith »

I achieved what I wanted here. <p>You all agree, its not THAT important to be perfect in English. <p>And THAT was my message. <p>Success, comes from the desire to beat “IT” at all odds.
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philba
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Re: ian's grammactical rules

Post by philba »

You all should read this really great book on punctuation. Yeah, I said the same thing - sounds as interesting a watch the hour hand move. But its great, a fun read.<p>Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. Lynne Truss. <p>The title comes from a joke that follows a misprint in the dictionary (OED, iirc). A panda walks into a bar, orders a drink, pulls out a gun, shoots it and walks out. The bartender asks him "why did you do that???". "I'm a Panda, look it up".<p>Phil
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