Definitely Defiant

[Harold Snyder <ENSNYDER -at- ECUVM1 -dot- BITNET>]

The "Defini/ately and Egnlish teachers" thread has worked its way around
our list for the past few days. Yesterday, a former lurker "delurked" and
suggested that engineers had been damaged by 12+ years of poorly taught
English.

Although I have a tendancy to agree with those who think that we learned
all the grammar we could by 8th grade, it has been my experience that two
students, sitting in the same class, receiving the same instruction, often
receive different grades (which is a polite way of saying that some students
learn better than other students, and some of these students become doctors
and other engineers). Yet both were taught the same grammar and English
mechanics. If engineers (and some tech writers) use poor grammar, let's
their shortcomings where they belong--on them and not their teachers.

Furthermore, good grammar and good spelling may not be the two most
important fundamental of communication, but if we can remove all the "noise"
(poor grammar, mispelled words, proper punctuation, etc.), perhaps the
message will be received more efficiently (so our audience can "get it" and
not have to figure it out for themselves).

Having stepped down from my soapbox of American English, I'll fade away...

No offense intended.

Hal

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+ Hal Snyder, Professor of English | Technical Editing; Business,          +
+ Dept. of English (GCB 2115)      |  Scientific, and Technical Writing    +
+ East Carolina University         | ENSNYDER -at- ECUVM -dot- CIS -dot- ECU -dot- EDU            +
+ Greenville, NC 27858-4353        | ENSNYDER -at- ECUVM1 or Voice 919/328-6669 +
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