BARRY HOLLAND wrote: > I don't agree Dorothy, speaking as one who punctuates correctly when > sending a text message, it's [note correct > apostrophe] important that standards aren't > allowed to slip, as in the ridiculous suggestion in the papers that > ''spelling should evolve'' & 'kids' should be > allowed to spell ''as they see fit.'' One of the > worst cases of this was when I read, many years ago my daughter's > essay for school that included one character saying 'alright, > alright.' I told her that it's always ''all right, all right.'' > Imagine my feelings when the book was marked & corrected to > ''alright, alright.'' This , from a supposed English teacher!!!!! I > raised Cain at the school on the next open evening!!!!!! I'm sure > that Andrew wasn't offended by my e-mail & if he was, that wasn't my > intention. As has been said many times on this list, it's not just > about boats & waterways & his incorrect caption did not detract one > iota from the info given. This is an English language website & I am > keen to promote it as such. I fully expect to be shot down in flames > for any grammatical or spelling mistake I make in these postings. > Please lighten up Barry Nb rantover > OK, you have your point of view, with which I concur. However, as you may have noticed, we do not live in a perfect world, so we should make allowances for those whose teachers were less thorough than ours. Maybe your campaign for perfect punctuation would be better directed towards the education authorities than towards members of this list. Some of the spelling I have seen on this list has left me really puzzled, so I agree with you that standards of spelling should be improved. My dictionary seems to be with you on 'alright', but accepts it as a variation of 'all right'. However, 'orrite' might be a variation too far. I didn't think I was the one who needed to lighten up!!!!!! (See, I can use as many exclamation marks as you can!!!!!!)
Dorothy
