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From: horne-scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Against educational fads
Message-ID: <27936@cs.yale.edu>
Date: 22 Dec 90 03:45:48 GMT
References: <39897@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <27743@cs.yale.edu> <40001@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
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In article <40001@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes:
<
<Was this discussion about writing and typing? No. I merely claim that you can
<teach the skill of writing better with a word processor than you can with a
<pencil because the response time is better and it is a more convivial tool.

I doubt it.  Some will like computers, some will be frustrated by them.

Anyway, much of the "convivial" nature of word processors comes from their
toy-like quality.

>I
<also claim that you can't teach the skill of writing without a tool.

Of course.

<I think that if Scott is going to post, he needs to read the entire discussion
<to get a drift for where it came from and where it might be going

I've read the discussion, thank you very much.

<The response about secretaries is possibly sexist and at the least degrading.
<Why would you assume secretaries aren't writers. My guess is that they are much
<better than average... because they know how to use, and do use the best 
<writing tool ever invented:-)

Ah, you're singing this old song again.  Several points:

1) NO, it was not sexist.  I'm one of the few males I know who calls himself
   a feminist.  However, *your* response might be regarded as sexist, as you
   seem to make the assumption that secretaries are of one sex and reflect on
   that sex.

2) It's not degrading, either.  Secretaries are hired for their typing ability
   (and other skills, of course, but this discussion pertains to typing).
   If he (_N.B._:  not `she') types 200 wpm but can't form a sensible paragraph
   on paper, he'll be hired as a secretary before someone with a Pulitzer
   prize for literature who fumbles along with two fingers.

3) Secretaries usually *copy*; they don't write.  Granted, some employers who
   can't write get secretaries who can to write for them.  But that's not
   ordinarily a secretary's job.

4) Do they know how to use word processors?  I'm tired of the typographical
   horrors which spew from the "desktop-publishing" and "word-processing"
   systems of those who know nothing about typography.  I'd like to see all
   such people relegated to typewriters (or at least straight-ASCII text
   editors) until they acquire some typographical taste.

5) As I've been saying all along, you continue to confuse the use of a writing
   tool and the effective use of writing.  A calligrapher need not be able to
   compose a sentence on his own; a writer need not have good handwriting.
   You're just clouding the issue.

					--Scott

-- 
Scott Horne                               ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne
horne@cs.Yale.edu      SnailMail:  Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT   06520
203 436-1817                    Residence:  Rm 1817 Silliman College, Yale Univ
Uneasy lies the head that wears the _gao1 mao4zi_.