Dr. Bracker,
I was reading your defense to my reply, and I thought I might give us all a
chuckle. Since you weren't aware, my use of Nazi is as an english-language
Nazi. I hope everyone else on the list got it. Further, since you started
telling me I should proofread and whatnot, I decided you probably knew what you
were talking about so I threw this at my girlfriend, an English major, while I
watch Seinfeld. How do the maxims go? Better to be thought a fool than open
your mouth and remove all doubt, look before you leap, etc. etc. whatever fits.
Regardless, her thought about it are as such:
The first response is too verbose; I don't know who would want to read it.
The second response contains the following obvious errors:
1) "March" is misspelled in the subject line.
2) Only "dear" and "orchid" in the greeting should be capitalized.
3) There is a superfluous comma after the word "is" in the first sentence of
the second paragraph. That said, the word "that" should be inserted where the
comma presently stands.
4) "A good lesson for him" is not a complete thought and should not be treated
as a complete sentence. It should be attached to the previous sentence by a
colon (this would be the easiest way to repair the sentence, but rewording the
entire thought would be recommended in order to avoid using complicated
punctuation such as the colon).
5) After the semicolon in the last sentence of the second paragraph, the word
"yes" should not be capitalized.
6) In the final paragraph, an em-dash should not be used between "Nazi" and "I"
because it is separating a dependent clause and an independent clause,
respectively; a comma would have been more appropriate.
I will have my degree in English (with a focus in technical writing) by the end
of this year. Nonetheless, I suppose I am too inferior to even begin to tackle
your writing. Perhaps before suggesting proofreading to anyone else, you
should consider some proofreading of your own; maybe you can ask the English
department at Purdue to assist you. The English department might even be able
to define "grammar Nazi" for you.
Regards,
Kristin Aubel
PS - I do applaud you for your comic genius; your greeting ("Dear Orchid
friends," with an emphasis on the word "friends") in contrast to your pompous
tone makes for great irony!
Feel free to forward this to the Purdue English Dept. for peer review.
Neither I nor Kristin have proofread this,
Steve Topletz
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