OT: what's with the 'i'?

[Craig White]

On Fri, 2013-02-01 at 17:16 -0800, Joe Zeff wrote:
> On 02/01/2013 04:52 PM, Craig White wrote:
> > It's clear that you want this e-mail list, informal as it is to respect
> > your sense of proper grammar.
> 
> No, it's not "his sense of proper grammar," it's proper grammar as it's 
> been taught in schools in every English speaking country for over a 
> century now.
----
but we're not in school here. There's no grades. The few who feel
lowered by having to trudge through all the e-mails with bad grammar can
find other lists where good grammar is actually a useful endeavor.
----
> As I see it, there are three reasons people's grammar on this list falls 
> short.  This is an international list and not all of the members have 
> English as their first (or even second) language.  My attitude is that 
> they're doing the best they can and as long as I can work out what they 
> originally meant, that's all that matters.  Second, there are native 
> English speakers who either were never taught properly in school (I have 
> a friend who has trouble with homonyms, using "flue" for "flew" and 
> other such errors because of problems when she was young.)  And, of 
> course, there are the people who were exposed to proper grammar, syntax 
> and word usage but simply don't care.  On some mailing lists, people in 
> both of the latter two groups would be flamed for their errors.  On this 
> one, I keep my opinions to myself because I can't see any way it could 
> possibly help and many ways it could end up making trouble for everybody.
----
As you see it? Who cares? I am not interested in hearing your personal
ambitions, your political beliefs or discussing your morals. Has
absolutely nothing to do with Fedora.

People intent on shaming others to comply with their phobias pertaining
to grammar, style and spelling errors should find another outlet to
satisfy their OCD needs.
----
> Now, of course, we're in a long, OT discussion of the issue and I think 
> that if nothing else, it's let all of us who don't like bad grammar to 
> air our opinions instead of bottling them up as we'd normally do.  No, I 
> don't expect this to result in any change, but who knows; somebody might 
> decide to be more careful because they'd never realized how it looks to 
> others.
----
well let me give you a clue on how it looks to at least one person...
overwrought, overbearing, pointless and self-indulgent.

The judgmental, snobbish, elitist opinions are clearly going to cause
more people not to post than they will encourage.

Probably in another form, another time and space (and medium), you and
Patrick and I might become best of friends but I gotta tell you, get
over yourself and your opinions and focus on something that actually
matters.

Craig



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