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Subject:Re: Semicolon Survey From:kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Mon, 25 Aug 2003 09:45:12 -0600
Robert wrote:
> ...I learned a long time ago that you can't dumb stuff down to the
> least common denominator without dropping a lot of content on the floor.
Okay, I'll bite.
Give me an example of tech writing where changing a passage that has a
semicolon into a passage that uses some other construction would
necessarily "drop a lot of content on the floor."
Obviously, snippets of code that contain a semicolon are not applicable to
this argument; instead, we are talking only about a semicolon used as a
grammatical device.
And we don't seem to be talking about the same thing when we discuss
people with a "low level of reading skill." People I would assign that
attribute to simply do not read recreationally, whether it's Wodehouse or
Cartland. And for that matter, by your logic should we assume Hemingway
was writing dumbed-down stuff for fifth-graders?
Keith Cronin
Who needs abs of steel? I've got abs of Pilsbury!
