Amber Rhea writes: >On 9/30/02 8:42 PM, PCI PowerMacs at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >wrote: > >>> For those who critique another for misspelling or sentence structure >>> when the question was about a hardware or software problem..., They >>> deserve the Pacifier Award for acting like babies. I'm wondering what >>> kind of life those people have? >>> >> They don't have lives. They have little rules they >> learned in school and never outgrew. It's less than >> childish, it's moronic. And petty. > >...and totally unrealistic. I've got a degree in linguistics; believe me, I >know that "grammar rules" (the ones we learn in grade school, like never end >a sentence with a preposition) have nothing to do with the language itself >and everything to do with boring old men from the 1800's who liked to write >rule books. :)
BA in English, history, and philosophy, of all things. I learned my grammar the hard way -- as a book designer putting editorial corrections in page galleys. Now it's all second nature, which is why you'll generally find Low End Mac one of the better edited sites on the Mac Web. At the same time, we don't straight jacket our writers. Writers based in the US are expected to write American English. For those elsewhere, we do our best to accommodate their standards (peculiarities) in spelling, punctuation, etc. Sure, now and then we have to translate some idiom for the predominantly US audience.... Beyond trying to use punctuation and parentheses and quote marks and the like correctly, we have a pretty broad range of styles represented. We're breezy enough for words like gonna and kinda; language is fluid, and these words have entered the mix. And don't even get me started on the way educated scholarly types tried to impose the Greek and Latin grammatical constructs on the English language. English is so vastly different (more flexible, more open ended) that there's simply no comparison. Now, what in the world does this have to do with Macs. ;-) Dan the listmom, OT (Okay, go ahead and ban me. I know this thread is OT, but it's also turned into something enlightening and harmless.) -- Dan Knight, president, Cobweb Publishing, Inc. <http://cobwebpublishing.com> <http://lowendmac.com> <http://digital-views.com> <http://digigraphica.com> <http://lowendpc.com> <http://reformed.net> Microsoft Windows instead of Unix? How 20th century! -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
