I agree with much of what you say regarding judging the quality of a potential vendor by how carefully they express themselves, but I don't think it's appropriate for anyone to adopt the role of critic unless the person being critiqued has requested that service.
Setting oneself up as an arbiter of linguistic perfection invites others to question why you use two spaces after a semicolon, use commas carelessly, use hyphens instead of dashes and use a structure like "are both (1) necessary and (2) don't set themselves." What does "as regards" mean? It must be a colloquialism in your area. If you think proofreading by a native speaker is a good idea, why the English-English spelling of "demeanour," "actualise" and "anatomising"? --Don Don Kelly PCF Corp People Come First 651 842-1000 888 Don Kell(y) 651 842-1001 fax -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alex Balashov Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 7:04 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [asterisk-biz] Mike Diehl-Fax Service On 03/30/2010 07:35 PM, Xirak M wrote: > You surely got issues with these guys! > > The guy is just trying to sell stuff and he got his point across loud > and clear. > > Calm down le professeur! In principle, you are correct. And, I'm not an academic; I'm in business as much as everyone else. :-) My argument about why I take these stances has always been that standards of discourse, and specifically, quality of writing and thought, are both (1) necessary and (2) don't set themselves. If you believe the point of the list is simply to enable the transaction of commerce by whatever communicative means are adequate to convey the information, then there's really no need for any standards or to call anyone out on quality of presentation. in fact we cn all mk r pitch in txt spk cuz it stl has recvrable signal U no? y bother From a purely functional, utilitarian standpoint, it certainly works. I suppose I have always attached additional qualitative value to good communication, and also think that on an interpersonal level it is a valuable point of marketing differentiation. Additionally, in my experience underlying intelligence and diligence expressed in writing is a useful data point insofar as it correlates sufficiently to the quality of the vendor as regards technical sophistication and effectiveness of customer service. It is not the only data point, of course, and there are exceptions to everything. However, I'll bet I'm not the only person that associates poor writing with poor thinking, which, when peeled away, often reveals poor technology, bad design, and other signs of amateur structure, naive business models, spotty fly-by-night operations, fast-and-loose/get-rich-quick thinking, and other weaknesses in underlying substance. I've certainly received enough e-mail privately from members of this list suggesting that they concur with this assessment, and have even gotten a few customers who singled me out for my stances on this as a useful differentiating point. If you don't happen to share in these inductive associations, then you will see what I do as a pointless waste of time and the expression of a needlessly abrasive, immature demeanour. I'm certainly neither oblivious to that nor unaware of the liabilities it carries to my reputation, or the resulting business impact. However, as I'm sure you know, some people go into business for themselves not only to make money, but also to be able to actualise - to put into practice - certain strongly-held values; in other words, to do whatever it is they believe the right thing to be. This ability is often constrained in most employment settings. It also often conflicts with the imperative of making money, which can be clearly seen from how popular my idiosyncrasies make me. It can also win a lot of solidarity and partisanship from folks who privately agree with me, which I found to be a pleasant surprise on a commercial and personal level, as I was definitely not expecting that. -- Alex Balashov - Principal Evariste Systems LLC Tel : +1 678-954-0670 Direct : +1 678-954-0671 Web : http://www.evaristesys.com/ -- _____________________________________________________________________ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-biz mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz -- _____________________________________________________________________ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-biz mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
