On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Teo Zenios wrote:
> > But how can you determine if the content is good if you can't decipher the
> > text because the grammer is so poor?
>
> Most mistakes are obvious typos or wordprocessor screwups based on typos ("I
> walked down to the see" instead of sea), while sloppy it doesnt keep you
Yeah, but for us curmudgeons it's annoying and distracting.
> from deciphering the content. If your reading an article that was aimed at
> people with a higher level of education then yourself your going to have
> problems even without grammar errors (some legal documents and medical
> reports come to mind). Then you have people who like to weave a string of
Well, first of all, if you can read and you know the basic rules of
grammar, spelling, etc., then the rules apply to anything you read. So
even if you don't comprehend the content of the words, you do know how to
read them. Then you use a dictionary to try to determine just what it is
you're reading. Second, the example you use is specious. If a legal or
medical document is written with poor grammar and spelling, not only will
it be less comprehensible, it'll be considered reprehensible by the
greater practice! But more importantly, there's a major difference
between a complicated and highly technical piece of writing and a poorly
written document. The two don't compare.
> grammatically correct worthless crap like 90% of the dotcom era websites did
> for what the company actually produced. I have read quite a few manuals for
> process controllers coming from japan that showed you what you needed to do
> to make then function, but were a pain to read because of the translation
> somebody did from japanese to english.
Ah yes, Engrish. A totally different topic altogether. But at any rate,
this proves the point: the grammar was probably poor (or nonsensical), and
perhaps there was a spelling error or two or more (or a homonym),
therefore clouding the intent of the meaning. See what we're getting at
now?
A misspelled word here and some poor grammar there does not compare to
full blown Engrish, I would agree, but both are equally annoying.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
Received on Mon Feb 02 2004 - 19:26:04 GMT