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From: renner@uiucdcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: YAGF (Yet Another Grammar Flame)
Message-ID: <36200161@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Oct-84 06:23:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.36200161
Posted: Wed Oct 10 06:23:00 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Oct-84 06:18:49 EDT
References: <136@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Lines: 38
Nf-ID: #R:ssc-vax:-13600:uiucdcs:36200161:000:1641
Nf-From: uiucdcs!renner    Oct 10 05:23:00 1984

> > >   And boy is your face red.
> > 
> > Oh, bullsh*t, Ken.  The original note was damn near unreadable.  Marla's
> > note contains one typographical error.  If you can't tell any difference
> > between the two -- if you think they are equally bad -- then you ought to
> > pull the cable from the back of your terminal and play by yourself for a
> > while.
> > Scott Renner
> 
> 	I believe Scott missed Ken's point.  There is no such thing
> as "correct" English.  The problem is probably equivocation on
> the term "grammatically correct..."

 I don't think Ken's point has much to do with "correct English."  I see
the exchange as:
  1.  Person A posts a badly-written, difficult-to-read article.
  2.  Person B complains about the writing in the above article.
      Person B's note happens to contain a typographical error.
  3.  Ken claims that Person B should be embarrassed on account of
      the typographical error.

Conclusion:  Ken believes that making any error in an article which
criticizes the writing style of another is an act which brings shame on
the author. 

> 	One particulary delightful aspect of the net is that people
> often use a less formal writing style.    I call it "conversational
> writing."		- Don Steiny (steiny@scc)

The writer's goal should be to communicate to others (else the
article could be sent to /dev/null with considerable savings of phone
charges).  The writer's responsibility is to make the reader's task as
easy as possible.  When "conversational writing" deteriorates into an
abandonment of this responsibility, the rest of us have a problem.

Scott Renner
{pur-ee,ihnp4}!uiucdcs!renner