TechWhirl Sponsors

---

 

[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
[Author Index (this month)][Thread Index (this month)][Top of Archive]

Re: Display or appear (Was: Can "either" be used if there are three or moreselections?)

Subject: Re: Display or appear (Was: Can "either" be used if there are three or moreselections?)
From: quills -at- airmail -dot- net
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 08:45:42 -0500

Elna Tymes wrote:

And the subject has been discussed to death on this board before -
check the archives.

Which sparks an observation: this sort of discussion, like many of the grammatical
ones on the list, is about writing correctly rather than well. If an authority
can't be cited, the alternative is to obtain a concensus.

I can't help thinking that this emphasis is misplaced. Personally, I am far more
interested in writing well than writing correctly. Not that the two are necessarily
mutually exclusive, you understand. Still, if I had to choose one over the other,
I'd choose to write well. And if that means breaking every rule of correctness, I
can live with that.

After all, the early prescriptive grammarians faulted Shakespeare heavily for all
sorts of things - double negatives, ending sentences in prepositions, using "they"
for the indefinite pronoun - yet his name is still more familiar to us than most of
the gramarians'. This seems a clear choice to me.

Yeah, but Bill was a poet, he was writing for the stage and such.

We are not.

Well, we may be poets in our souls, but that's not what we get paid for.

Scott

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Planning to attend IPCC 01, October 24-27 in Santa Fe? Sign up by
October 3 and get a substantial discount! Program information, online registration, and more on http://ieeepcs.org/2001/

Your monthly sponsorship message here reaches more than
5000 technical writers, providing 2,500,000+ monthly impressions.
Contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) for details and availability.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.

---

References:
Re: Display or appear (Was: Can "either" be used if there are three or more selections?): From: Laura_Hammett
Re: Display or appear (Was: Can "either" be used if there are three or moreselections?): From: Elna Tymes
Re: Display or appear (Was: Can "either" be used if there are three or moreselections?): From: Bruce Byfield

Previous by Author: RE: Display or appear
Next by Author: Re: Word choice (was: Display or appear (Was: Can "either" be used ... ))
Previous by Thread: Re: Display or appear (Was: Can "either" be used if there are three or moreselections?)
Next by Thread: Re: Display or appear (Was: Can "either" be used if there are three or more selections?)

[Top of Archive] | [Author Index (this month)] | [Thread Index (this month)]

---

---

---