Language and English

From: Tothwolf <tothwolf_at_concentric.net>
Date: Fri Jan 4 19:46:27 2002

On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> From: "Sellam Ismail" <foo_at_siconic.com>
>
> > Let's be accurate here. cummings was a poet. The people posting without
> > proper grammar and punctuation are not.
>
> This is not a place for "stream-of-consciousness" writing style, as has
> probably been pointed out repeatedly to those who insist on it. That is a
> style popular with, though wholly inappropriate for, a generation of
> youngsters with attention deficits and hyperactivity. It can give a guy
> whiplash trying to follow the mid-sentence changes in subject.

While I don't really care for your analogy, I do agree that mailing lists
are not the place for shorthand. Based on what I have seen on many mailing
lists, very few people overall use shorthand for email. If you use IRC
much, you will find that the "chat" there is in no way proper english.
When I use IRC, I tend to type in lowercase, drop punctuation, and use
many shorthand abbreviations. When I am sending emails, I try to stick to
proper english. I think the best way to sum this up is "When in Rome..."

-Toth
Received on Fri Jan 04 2002 - 19:46:27 GMT