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Yes, but which standard? You talk as though English was a single standard. Yet
there are not only national, but regional and even sub-cultural differences in
what is considered standard. Nor is proper English of today the proper English
of fifty or a hundred years ago. There's also standard English as taught in
academia, as opposed to standard English as used in various media outlets (which
is why each tends to have a style guide. Even dictionaries differ in what is
considered standard.
Earlier in this discussion, you implicitly admitted something of this variety,
when you wondered whether English usage was different from American. So why the
change now?
> I don't think so. Standard English grammar is particularly necessary for
> technical communication.
In another message, you raise a good point when you say that some people
mistrust instructions that have grammatical errors. From a practical
perspective, however, what matters is not so much whether you use Standard
English as a consistent standard. For example, purists may insist that "they" is
wrong when used as an indefinite pronoun, but, if you always use it, you will
still communicate.
Even if you aren't consistent, it's all a matter of signal to noise, with
inconsistencies being noise. Yet, even with a fair bit of noise, the basic
message comes across. Moreover, from my observations, most users will tolerate
considerable noise if they can still get the basic information that they want.
I'm much the same way myself when reading instructions. I notice the grammatical
inconsistencies or the faulty layout, but I put them to one side to focus on
learning what I want to know.
Certainly, a professional tries to be consistent. Yet while I have sometimes
have people criticize a manual or article for its content, I have never had
anyone criticize grammar - even on work where I have seen too many errors for
comfort have slipped by both me and my editor, and wished I had time to revise
before anybody noticed.
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