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I agree with Abby. When it comes to changing 'happy' to 'glad', you must
choose your battles. Sometimes changes may be based on colloquialisms;
especially if you aren't from that regional area. I choose to say 'people'
while others feel more comfortable with 'folk'. It depends on if it's worth
fighting the higher-ups for changes which are not grammatical errors, just
matters of individual opinion.
Andrea
-----Original Message-----
From: Abby_Schiff -at- factset -dot- com [mailto:Abby_Schiff -at- factset -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 1999 12:49 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Do you just bite your tongue?
Hi Debbie,
If it's stylistic differences you're talking about, I'd suggest using a
commercial style guide (Chicago Manual of Style, MLA). Ask your manager to
inform the higher-ups of this decision, make it "official policy,"
whatever.
If it's hard-core grammar errors you're dealing with, choose your battles.
Are these errors akin to "I is happy," or are they somewhat marginal,
go-either-way issues (i.e., split infinitives, dangling prepositions) that
may look bad to you but aren't really wrong in certain contexts (marketing,
some Web content, etc.)? As Winston Churchill said, strict grammarians'
outright ban on dangling prepositions is "A rule up with which we should
not put." :-)
Abby Schiff
FactSet Research Systems
-----
<<Today, I politely attached the
changes to an e-mail and forwarded them to my supervisor. I informed him of
the situation and told him that I was not going to publish the document
with
the errors, but that I would not argue if he chose to. He did. Either way,
I
still think it makes most of us look bad, but what do you do? Do you argue
for what is right or do you keep your mouth shut so you can keep your
job?>>
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