(GEN) Reviewers Please Read...

in article 2gFCb.26$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net, Art Murray at snipped-for-privacy@mindspring.com wrote on 12/13/03 8:21 AM:

I couldn't agree more. My daughter is 34 now and never diagramed a sentence. Somehow, she learned to write well but only because she loved to read.

MB

Nigel Cheffers-Heard writes about condoleezzas having two Zs. :)

No, no, it's a safety feature. In case one "z" flames out or something, you've still got the other one. Of course, whether or not a condoleezza can safely make it home on one "z" has always been a matter of debate.

DLF

Whatever it is that's used on eBay seems to be its own language. I'm not sure what language it is, but the word "mint" seems to mean "shrinkwrap removed, box opened, bag opened, pieces removed from sprues, some pieces missing, coffee spilled on instruction sheet, half of decal sheet missing, and wings glued to together sloppily."

(There's another one: does the trailing period go inside the quotation mark or outside? The official rule says the punctuation always goes inside the trailing quote, but that never made sense to me if the quote is a short phrase and not an entire sentence.)

That one is actually correct in some cases and heavily debated in others. For instance, at family gatherings we can never figure out if we're a herd of Ferrises or a herd of Ferris'. Both are technically correct. Both require lots of snack food.

You are correct about "everyone" versus "every one" (the former is correct, the latter isn't) but both "alright" and "all right" are in fact correct. "All right" is the formal version, and "alright" is the informal form. Until fairly recently "alright" was considered incorrect.

Part of the problem there is that a lot of the acronyms and abbreviations are new, many based on new technology, and there aren't really any rules yet. Or the old rules don't apply. I don't remember learning anything in school that would help me with text messaging on a cell phone.

DLF

It's true, many (but certainly not all) computer people have poor communications skills, particularly written skills.

I used to work at a large research institution populated with several hundred PhD-level computer scientists. (No names mentioned, but if you're reading this message, you're using technology some of them invented.) While some of them had very good writing skills, some were dismal at it. Their messages were always terse, using as few words as possible, and frequently unintelligible. Punctuation and capitalization were a complete waste of their time, they felt, and correct spelling was simply something they couldn't be bothered with. One of them even suggested we combat the rising flood of spam and virii by deleting every incoming e-mail message that was longer than two lines. His reasoning was that if a person couldn't say what they meant in two lines or less, obviously they weren't very important.

In another instance, I was chatting with one young network administrator who was gleeful that computer technology had been having such an impact on the English language. In the future, he predicted, computer scientists would drive the language! I told him I didn't think that was such a good idea, and compared it to a group of Brooklyn construction workers performing the ballet "Swan Lake".

"Youse want I shoulds perform a pirouette ovah hear by dah cement mixah?"

DLF

According to what I remember from school it would be Ferrises, unless you were talking about something that belonged to you all, as in "the Ferris' ancestral lands". An apostrophe always denotes either posession or omission.

You mean the other correct, "myriad scale models".

WmB

To reply, get the HECK out of there snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

Speaking of redundancies:

'ATM machine'

'PIN number'

'HIV virus'

Every time I hear one of these it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to my ears......

The affect/effect is easy:

- effect has a cause (ie it is a consequence of an action.)

- affect has a subject (ie who/what is affected by the consequence of an action.)

Actually, Z = "ZULU." "ZEBRA" is about 50 yrs out-of-date.

Painter - southern USA dialect & some western states (movement of southern speakers to west).

It can also be used as a transitive verb:

1. To bring into existence. 2. To produce as a result. 3. To bring about.

'Effect means ?to bring about or execute?: layoffs designed to effect savings.'

i all way's did hate english Class ;-)

From a wildlife biologist's perspective, this is the usage that I have encountered from other biologists:

The Florida subspecies is: panther

The Texas subspecies is: cougar

Other Rocky Mountain and Central American subspecies are: puma (pronounced by most, though not all, as poo-mah)

These certainly aren't hard and fast rules, just the most common uses I have seen. Well, except the Florida subspecies; that one is always panther. Catamount and Painter are two of the most unusual local names for this critter that I have come across.

-Doug

That's the point the argument revolves around. Around which the argument revolves. The point what the argument be about. Whatever.

I've seen references that argue all three views: Ferrises is correct, or Ferris' is correct, or both are correct. I now suspect it's a regional thing, but I've been unable to determine how the regions break down.

DLF (due to break down any minute now)

Of course you realise we are now going to have someone get fussed up, don't you? ;)

Bill Banaszak, MFE