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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!isrnix!akp
From: akp@isrnix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Flame on net posters' English - (nf)
Message-ID: <1241@pur-ee.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Dec-83 03:30:24 EST
Article-I.D.: pur-ee.1241
Posted: Tue Dec 13 03:30:24 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Dec-83 02:34:10 EST
Sender: notes@pur-ee.UUCP
Organization: Electrical Engineering Department , Purdue University
Lines: 23

#N:isrnix:17600008:000:1138
isrnix!akp    Dec 12 19:29:00 1983

<take *this*, first-line-eater!>
This is the newsgroup for general-purpose (especially net-related) flames,
right? Well...

	I don't know about the rest of the world, but I was taught to use
proper English *all the time*, with rare exceptions when it is more effective
to drop slang or incorrect usage.  That carries from speaking to writing,
and I try to be correct and clear when I write, even in a medium like USENET.
So it is that I come to flame about the carelessness of many submitters to
this network: I have to believe that you know the difference between it's and
its, between other's and others, between their and they're, but all too often
I see this kind of abuse. A dangling comma is as bad as no comma at all,
while run-on sentences and distant pronoun-antecedent pairs are just hard to
understand.  Why are people careless with their mechanics on the net? Do
they think that it doesn't affect others' impressions of them? I know it
affects mine: I spend more time mentally correcting errors than "listening"
to the author.  Does anybody else notice these things?
							-- Allan Pratt
				...decvax!ihnp4!iuvax!isrnix!akp