Conference thebay::joyoflex

    >Her response was "Oh!  I'd be terrified to write anything in a
    >conference like that;  everyone would pick apart what I write."
    
    Did she really respond with two spaces after the semicolon?
    Every respondent should know that there should be two spaces
    after each sentence, and two spaces after each colon, but
    not after a semicolon.

    Or did the author of .0 misquote her "." as a ";" and then correctly
    quote her two spaces?
    
    ed

    Ah, yes, but those two spaces following the period (and colon) are just
    a convention of monospaced typing and have nothing to do with either the
    language or its printed representation in proportional type.

    Re last 2
    On the subject of misquoting things not written, it's interesting
    that the intonation of reported speech is seldom accurate. Say
    `Where are you going?' and "`Where are you going?' she asked" and
    you'll see what I mean: in each case the normal intonation is
    broadly U-shaped, with a peak at the end, but in the second case
    there's a secondary peak - not as high as the one at the end of
    the utterance - at the end of the quoted question.
    
    Re .0
    
    Let us draw a veil over the presciptive/descriptive debate, which
    has raged elsewhere, gentle reader. It's true enough to observe
    that people's tendency to make mistakes is an engine for change in 
    a language. I'd be surprised if anyone could reasonably argue
    that that's a good enough reason for making mistakes - although
    we may argue about when a mistake is common enough to be recognized
    as acceptable in whatever the standard language is.
    
    b

    re .-1
    
    No, I didn't mean to imply that I advocate mistakes.  And perhaps you
    didn't mean to imply that I did.
    
    But I've been thinking, too, about what to do when you hear one.  Do
    you correct the mistake?  I don't, simply because I think it's quite a
    rude thing to do.  (Unless the person prides himself/herself on this
    sort of thing, in which case I consider any statements fair game...) 
    I think of language as a game we all play, some of us using looser rules
    than others.  And playing by stricter rules is a choice I make in some
    instances, mostly because I derive pleasure from the preciseness.    
    
    But correcting someone's grammar, or choice of words, or whatever,
    is insulting, I think, because the message given to the person
    corrected is that the words were more important than the content.
    
    
    

re: .0

>    Her response started me thinking about this, and also about why some of
>    us care about language and others don't, and also, why using language
>    "improperly" is a social stigma of a sort.

Hey! You've got a great idea for a play or novel.  One character could be a
stuffy professor, with a name like, say "Henry Higgins".  Another character
could be some semiliterate guttersnipe named, say, "Eliza Doolittle". 
"Henry" could teach "Eliza" to say some simple phrase, like "The rain in
Spain stays mainly in the plain" properly, and convince everyone that she is
a princess of some sort.

>    But correcting someone's grammar, or choice of words, or whatever,
>    is insulting, I think, because the message given to the person
>    corrected is that the words were more important than the content.

I think another reason is that correct use of grammar is often used as an
indicator or intelligence, and, particularly in periods of history in which
only a few were educated, social status (one of the themes of Pygmalion).

I absolutely agree that it is (at least perceived to be) insulting to
correct someone's grammar.  That's why I like this Notesfile.  I can come 
in here and complain -- to an understanding, and sometimes sympathetic 
audience -- about things that bother me, like misuses of apostrophe's, and 
not fear insulting anyone.  Or I can engage in some parrying on word usage or 
grammar, and it can result in some intellectual stimulation rather than 
personal attack.    

Clay
 
 

    The only times I've corrected another's grammar, usage, or spelling,
    it's been with a fellow word-weenie.  Said word-weenie understood the
    context, and called me appropriate names.
    
    					andrew

    re .-1
    
    Yeah; I agree.  With word weenies it's fun.  Although I guess it would
    be annoying to be actually trying to get a point across and have a word
    weenie stop and correct my grammar.  Stops the flow of conversation,
    you know.
    
    Which reminds me of a guy I used to work with, who was not what I'd
    call a "word weenie" but who used to enjoy doing things like, having
    ordered a steak in a restaurant,  saying "Yes" when a waiter would ask
    "How would you like that cooked?"  He got some sort of wierd pleasure
    out of this sort of thing.  
    
    -ellie

    Re: -1

    He just sounds like a general weenie instead of a word weenie.

    - Jim

    re .-1
    
    8^)))
    
    You are sooooooooooo right!

�    No, I didn't mean to imply that I advocate mistakes.  And perhaps you
�    didn't mean to imply that I did.
    
    Nope. When I wrote `I don't think anyone...' (or some such) I was
    trying to generalize; sorry if it came across as a personal gibe. I see
    now that the `we may argue...' may have read as a `you and I' sort of
    WE rather than a more general one that referred to JOYOFLEXERs and
    their ilk. Maybe I'd've been clearer writing Russian (which has an
    exclusive and an inclusive WE, I'm told); but I can't.
    
    b

    What I find frustrating is when people who SHOULD know "the rules"
    don't.  For example, in this morning's Globe there was a story
    containing a sentence with potentially garbled tenses.  It caught me
    and I puzzled over it for one grapefruit's worth of time, trying to
    figure out whether the sentence was correct (and the implied time
    difference was as reported) or the writer had simply screwed up.
    
    When reading comments in someone's code, grammar errors only
    cast doubt on the education and nit-pickyness of the programmer
    (and by implication, on the quality of the code), but errors in
    articles written by professional authors are very difficult to
    justify.
    
    Yes, the language changes over time.  Yes, "alot" shows up alot.
    But the standard rules for spelling and grammar are well established,
    and those who profess to make a living as writers should be
    expected to adhere to those rules.
    
    Doug.
    

>    But the standard rules for spelling and grammar are well established,
    
    To really read correctly, the reader shouldn't be distracted by
    what they're reading about. 
    
    Ray

    re .13
    
    Yes, you are so right!  There is "alot" of fuzzy writing out
    there, and the worst sin, I think, is writing so poorly that the
    reader has to just take a guess at what on earth it all means.  And 
    when this sort of drivel comes from the pen (or keyboard) of a 
    professional, it makes me wonder what the hell is going on. 
                                                              
    I long ago gave up on thinking that programmers should be able to 
    write clearly though.  Depressing, isn't it?  If they can't write 
    logically in English, (or whatever their native language is), how 
    can they write logically in C, or MACRO, or <insert language of your 
    choice>??  My answer is that many can't, and don't.  Before I became 
    a software engineer, I spent several years working as a technical writer,
    and generally did not gain a very high opinion of programmers from 
    that vantage point....
    
    -ellie

    A smooth flow and successful expression of thought are what we hope to
    achieve when we write, thus, at one time or another, I may say:
    
    	I am homeless.
    	I have no home.
    	No home have I.
    	I ain't got no home.
    
    In most formal situations, formal language is required, but it is
    namby-pamby to write, as I saw in the Wall Street Journal the other
    day, "You have to beat them or join them."  In this case, correct usage
    is "You have to beat 'em or join 'em."

re: .15

A couple of mild disagreements:

>    [T]he worst sin, I think, is writing so poorly that the
>    reader has to just take a guess at what on earth it all means.  

In the context of professional writing (especially technical writing) I think 
the worst sin is to write just poorly enough that the readier THINKS s/he 
knows what it means, but doesn't.  If writing is so poor that the reader 
KNOWS that s/he doesn't know what it means, s/he might be motivated to find 
out the correct information from some other source.

>    If they [programmers] can't write logically in English, (or whatever
>    their native language is), how can they write logically in C, or MACRO,
>    or <insert language of your choice>??  My answer is that many can't, 
>    and don't.

One major way that programming differs from English and other human languages 
is that usually if you make a spelling or syntax or grammar error in a 
programming language, you get an error message.  The computer doesn't 
understand you, and will tell you so.  Not so with human languages; a human 
will normally draw a conclusion as to what you meant, but won't tell you, for 
fear of being considered rude, or a word weenie.

Clay 

    Re .-1
    
    Yes; leading the reader astray is worse than losing him or her
    completely.
    
    What you say about computer languages is, of course, true.  But after
    years (decades) of debugging my own and other people's code I tend to
    think that, in matters of sensible writing, the compiler is about as
    useful as a spell checker...
    
    -ellie

    Here's is a problem which has been bothering me.
    
    My wife felt she was treated poorly at a dentist's office and
    when it came time to make another appointment, she called and told
    the dentist her reasons for changing dentists.  A few days later
    she got some flowers from him with a note "Your absolutely right."
    
    Probably the note was written by someone at the flower shop.  I do
    business with that flower shop and as far as flowers are concerned
    they do a good job.  I do think that doing a poor job of writing notes
    does make their business look a little less professional.
    
    If the note had been written by the dentist, I'd add one more reason
    for changing.
    
    Would you hold a "professional" to higher standards of language?
    If I picked on some engineers specs for the poor language, I think
    they would "take me to Personnel."
    
    ed

    re .19
    
    If the flower shop is in the business of providing notes to go with
    their bouquets, then these notes are as much a part of their product as
    the flowers are.  Providing an incorrectly spelled or worded note is
    just as bad as providing wilted flowers.....
    
    -ellie
                                               

>    If the note had been written by the dentist, I'd add one more reason
>    for changing.

To think that I've been going to a dentist whose writing ability is totally
unknown to me!  I'm going to insist that he submit a writing sample before
my next checkup.

    My dentist is an excellent dancer!
    

Sounds like a movie... "Dances with Dentists."

    This is only slightly related to this note, but I was
    dismayed to notice that a few announcers on the radio
    station to which I listen (the one that's asking for
    money this week, again) think that the 23rd letter
    of the alphabet is "dubber-ya".  They say this whilst
    explaining how they're the station of choice for intelligent
    listeners.
    
    Maybe I should offer to make them a pledge if they can 
    only refrain from saying "dubber-ya" for a whole hour?
          

    
  >>  Maybe I should offer to make them a pledge if they can 
  >>  only refrain from saying "dubber-ya" for a whole hour?

	  Yeah, after all, everybody knows it's "dubba-yoo".



          

>          Yeah, after all, everybody knows it's "dubba-yoo".

An interesting variant is "yoo-dub" which some use to refer to the University 
of Washington.

Clay

    Isn't it properly pronounced "va-va"?
    
    Ray

    re .17
    
  >	One major way that programming differs from English and other human
  >	languages  is that usually if you make a spelling or syntax or
  >	grammar error in a  programming language, you get an error message. 
  >	The computer doesn't  understand you, and will tell you so.  Not so
  >	with human languages; a human  will normally draw a conclusion as
  >	to what you meant, but won't tell you, for  fear of being
  >	considered rude, or a word weenie.
    
    Does this mean that I am an error message not a word weenie?
    
    :o)
    
    Jon

    re .28
    
    It must mean that you are a compiler!  8^)
    
    -e

    Or possibly just a "tight front-end". :-)
    
    I can't remember which language compiler it was back on a V2  VMS
    system I worked on but it could be configured to optionally 
    balk at, or do its best to parse,  certain language syntax 
    constructs which for historic reasons had worked, but were no longer
    officially supported.
    
    I think the command line was something like ;
    
    	/SYNTAX=TIGHT (D)
    		RELAXED

    I read once that some Fortran compiler would parse INTERGER without
    generating a syntax error; apparently it was easier to change the
    compiler than the programmers' spelling behaviour.
    
    From the same source it was mentioned one programmer complaining
    that if he declared two variables, the compiler should not object to
    the syntax VAR X,Y INTEGERS; :-) .... (don't know if this was the exact
    statement as it was probably Fortran again; the above line is Pascal)


                                                  - Rik -
    

    	In the days of cards and line printers, when an edit, compile,
    link, run sequence would take a day there was a lot of advantage in "do
    what I mean" compilers that would allow you to get a run in spite of a
    syntax error. A simple typo wouldn't neccessarily delay a project by a
    day. Back in the days before minicomputers and C were invented there
    was a lot of interest in this sort of thing. It seems to be rather an
    obselete technology now.

>   I read once that some Fortran compiler would parse INTERGER without
>   generating a syntax error; apparently it was easier to change the
>   compiler than the programmers' spelling behaviour.

     It looks like the compiler would take the first four unique
     characters to make a command match.

     DCL does that too on some commands.  Depends on what .EXE file gets
     started.  I can type:

     $ ASSIBOFARBUM DUA1 NAME$

     and have a logical NAME$ ASSIgned to DUA1.  Nothing checks after the
     first four.

             mP

    	Don't rely on DCL behaviour remaining unchanged. Unless we are all
    forced to ls and grep or use a mouse you may find you need more than
    four characters... You have been warned!

But it has been that way for as long as I can remember ;^)