Language and English

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Fri Jan 4 13:18:18 2002

Nope ... never studied Latin ... folks don't use it much anymore.

Most of the guys on this list recognize, however, that GERMAN, which I
learned before English, is not a romance language, being of the "other"
camp, i.e, a Germanic language.

Had you paid attention during what few classes you attended, you might,
perhaps, have encountered reference to a fellow named Chaucer, who wrote in
a style almost trivially transliterable to German, because of the structural
and lexical similarities between the languages. That, of course, was before
English became an "infix" language, meaning that the order of the words has
effect on the meaning of the sentence. (See what you can learn if you watch
the PBS channel instead of the "Simpsons?")

Why is it you feel you have to defend yourself against what really isn't an
attack? What's happened is that a few guys have, to greater or lesser
degree, pointed out their annoyance at a practice to which you've become
accustomed. The message is simple. Don't do that here. It's OK to do it
elsewhere, if folks don't object. They do object here, however.

Give yourself, and all of us, a break, please.

Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ian Koller" <vze2mnvr_at_verizon.net>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>; "Richard Erlacher" <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: Language and English


>
>
> Hello Dick,
>
> I get the impression, which may not be correct, that you
> may be retired, because of the greater amount of time that
> you are able to devote to reading and responding to newsgroup
> messages.
>
> If this is so, that would mean you encountered an educational
> system at a previous date in time that may have been more formal
> than that which I encountered.
>
> Question. Did you ever study Latin? Was Latin offered in your
> school system? It was not offered in mine, but since I recently
> have been in contact with people in France, Italy, Germany, and
> Spain, I believe having studied the root language of all the
> "romance" languages would have proven helpful now. I'll bet that
> when Latin no longer became a requirement in many educational
> programs, there was more than one that must have felt that
> that was a sign of deteriorating standards.
>
>
>
> Richard Erlacher wrote:
> >
> > Gee ... judging from the net unwillingness to use normal "adult"
> > punctuation, captitalization, etc, it does look as though you're doing
it
> > just to be "cute." I can't think of a single reason, otherwise, why one
> > would one do that?
> >
> > When I was in the 8th grade, one of the courses we were required to take
was
> > in typing. I've never gotten particularly good at it, but I did learn
that
> > a period at the end of a sentence is followed by two spaces, for
example.
> > In about the first grade, I learned that the first letter in a sentence
is
> > customarily capitalized. Why? I don't know, but it appears to be the
> > custom. As a consequence, the absence of these basic features makes
one's
> > writing harder to read. The odd-length lines of text don't help
> > readability, either. It's also customary to insert a blank line between
> > paragraphs. That, surely, is to enhance readability. If you want
people to
> > read your stuff, you've got to make it easy for them.
> >
> > If you insist on writing in a style reminiscent of E. E. Cummings
poetry,
> > you may find that your messages are read by readers of this forum with
about
> > the same frequency as E.E. Cummings' work, which might be a shame, in
case
> > you really do have something significant to contribute. or in case I'm
the
> > only one who doesn't read much Cummings.
> >
> > Dick
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <Golemancd_at_aol.com>
> > To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
> > Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 6:13 AM
> > Subject: Re: Language and English
> >
> > > this may help
> > > i am 38 years old, so there is nothing about my typing style
> > > where i am trying to be cute.
> > > i collect any computer i can get my hands on.
> > > i am developing an operating system and a multimedia program
> > > to create movies.
> > > i use a newer computer to produce records.
> > > i am also working out, as i was talking about
> > > in the original thread that got off track, a distributed
> > > os to control robots and also a custom computer
> > > to do the same.
> > >
> > > i guess thats it.
> > > joee
> > >
> > >
>
>
Received on Fri Jan 04 2002 - 13:18:18 GMT