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From: gordon@cae780.UUCP (Brian Gordon)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Is English decaying rapidly?
Message-ID: <1427@cae780.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Oct-85 14:23:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: cae780.1427
Posted: Fri Oct  4 14:23:05 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Oct-85 09:09:45 EDT
Organization: Tektronix, Inc. (CAE Systems Division), Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 26

Am I getting more sensitive, or is the English language, as used, becoming
less logical?

On all airlines now, for example, the landing message is always "We would like 
to welcome you to ...".  Well then, why don't they DO it?  Isn't "We would 
like to welcome you to New York" different from "Welcome to New York"?  Don't 
you expect the first to continue with "but, unfortunately, we landed in  ..."?

Similarly, why do more and more people make statements about all cases when
their clear intention is to discuss exceptions?  "Not available in all
areas" does decode into "available nowhere", doesn't it?

Grumble, grumble ...

FROM:   Brian G. Gordon, CAE Systems Division of Tektronix, Inc.
UUCP:   tektronix!teklds!cae780!gordon
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