language: The missing engineering skill

Did they carry it around, in a hold dull? Or a carry dull?

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

"... 18v dewalt saw-zaw ..."

A society in which the members cannot communicate any technical information in detail cannot prosper.

Lloyd

"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote in news:XnsA0CB4A3A35EE5lloydspmindspringcom@216.168.3.70:

I work at a research lab in Cambridge, MA, right next to MIT. We have a program where grad students do their thesis work at our lab, working with a staff member, but also supervised by a professor on the MIT campus.

I've supervised four Master's theses now, and have read quite a few other recent ones. Even at a place like MIT, with a world-class reputation, the writing skills of the engineering students is pretty pathetic. In reviewing my student's theses, I spend far more time fixing spelling, grammar & poor organization than I do any real technical issues. If I'm going to sign off on it, it's going to be readable.

Some professors aren't that fussy. I recently read one that had been "supervised" by a professor I know & respect, but that was done at a different MIT affiliated lab supervised primarily by a staff member. It was so full of mistakes it was embarassing. I suspect English wasn't the student's native language, but his supervisor's either didn't read it, or were too used to bad writing to care anymore.

Doug White

If you mess up the stage floor the dancers will kill you with their bare feet.

Gaffer = grandfather, it means the master electrician. His assistant is the Best Boy, once the senior apprentice.

Doug White fired this volley in news:XnsA0CBBF939C49Bgwhitealummitedu@69.16.186.7:

Yeah, Doug. I hate it when engineer's do that with their student's.

It would be better to make them do their assigment's right, or fail them.

LLoyd

If it's the same lab, say hi to Mike Gansler for me. jsw

I like to be under cover when there is heavy perpissitation.

The worst part of it is there are so many things that sound the same (or close) or are spelled close to the same that are TOTALLY different

- and getting the wrong word into a technical spec can REALLY screw things up when the guy following the instructions knows less about the engineering than the engineer knows about the instructions he has written.

Sometimes I get exhaustipated .... too tired to give a s*it...

I've uses the real stuff recently. It was something insane like $20 a roll at the counter of a photographic supply place. It's like a giant version of friction tape. It doesn't become unsticky, and can mostly be removed without leaving adhesive tracks and turning into dust.

"J. Clarke" fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@hamster.jcbsbsdomain.local:

I don't believe that's what he did. I believe he was 'diagonally' denying that they would be ignorant enough to pronounce the word "nuculus".

Lloyd

Carter used both versions.

I had a Pennysaver ad come out once, and I quickly bit their heads off for it. They said I offered "Softwear Services".

-- Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. -- John Quincy Adams

Thats right. or Your right.

(Either makes one cringe. And our brains fill in for the missing "n" there.)

-- Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. -- John Quincy Adams

On 9/11/2012 10:46 AM, J. Clarke wrote: ...

Chuckle... :)

Hell, I'm a NE (BS '68, MS NucSci '79) and not even from anyways close to "the South" and I say it that way about as often as not.

Did spend 10 yr in Lynchburg, VA (B&W NPGD) then 25+ in Oak Ridge, though so it does rub off... :)

I wasn't there early enough to know firsthand how Fermi said it altho Wigner was definitely not a practicer. :)

I always get a chuckle recalling a package received in Dept Head's office at uni addressed to the "Department of Unclear Engineering"

You're stretching quite far. Quite frankly the argument he is using is the sort of thing my mother would go on at length about. Doesn't matter if someone has three Nobel Prizes and wrote the Great American Novel, if she didn't like his pronunciation you'd hear about it for weeks.

I keep seeing people who know a great deal about nuclear energy criticed by people who know very little about it because the experts use a regional pronunciation for that one word.

Somebody needs to get a video camera and make the rounds of operating staff at nuclear power plants, asking each member to pronounce the word. Then do the same for PhD nuclear engineers and physicists.

You made women's clothes? ;-)

"Michael A. Terrell" fired this volley in news:GKednat-EYB4Wc3NnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

(Mike... that's... um... "after-dark 'services'...)

LLoyd

I'm not because I don't think they are ignorant, but to use a pronunciation based on 'nuke' is not what I expect from real scientists.

That's why I ripped 'em a new one. I -didn't- make women's clothing. (I kept those to wear myself. Er, oops! ;)

-- Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. -- John Quincy Adams