Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site rabbit.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!rabbit!jj
From: jj@rabbit.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: English, munglish, and politicians
Message-ID: <2249@rabbit.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Dec-83 15:57:03 EST
Article-I.D.: rabbit.2249
Posted: Mon Dec  5 15:57:03 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Dec-83 00:18:30 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 46



	From pyuxqq!fmc Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969
	
	The following is a portion of an article submitted by rabbit!jj.
	
		 Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics,net.misc
		 Subject: Long articles and content thereof. (Non flame!)
		 
		 If such cannot be done in 25 lines, then a 25 line article is
		 not appropriate to the subject, and will represent only a waste
		 of the writer's and readers' time.
	
	Now lets see how this could be SHORTENED without loss of meaning.
	
	If item won't fit in 25 lines, then forcing it wastes writer's & readers' time.
	
	Notice I just achieved a 3:1 reduction in number of lines!
				I'll never make a politician.
	
	(JJ here.)
<I'm assuming that this isn't satire, but I admit it could be.>
	Some people are, it seems, fond of talking in 
pesudo 'C' <If (foo) then (bar)>, and think that it has universal acceptance.
A subset of these people apparantly also feel that the deletion
of all articles, pronoun antecendants, and the like is also
acceptable.  I'm not one of those people, and despite my lack of spelling
ability (which is both well known and well documented), I prefer
to speak in (at least) <pseudo>English.

	A little more investigation of this vicious, unwarranted,
and totally offensive little attack on my character shows that,
despite fmc's "shortening" (sounds like Crisco to me), his
unreadable non-sentence has 16/30 of the word length, counting the
use of "&" for "and" as a word, rather than 10/30, as his 3:1 claim
suggests. I modestly suggest that this fact alone demonstrates
fmc's reliability.  <I could indeed use longer line length myself.
Whoopee!>  Somehow, if the intent is to communicate, I think
that such Crisco would be better forgotten, and that brevity
be balanced with clarity.

	I laugh!  I cheer!  I clap with glee!
-- 
-Diogenes stopped here-

(allegra,harpo,ulysses)!rabbit!jj