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From: gam@proper.UUCP (Gordon Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Flame on net posters' English -- ENOUGH!
Message-ID: <787@proper.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Dec-83 22:43:49 EST
Article-I.D.: proper.787
Posted: Thu Dec 22 22:43:49 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 26-Dec-83 01:11:05 EST
References: <1241@pur-ee.UUCP> <179@dual.UUCP>, <631@ut-sally.UUCP>
Organization: Proper UNIX, San Leandro, CA
Lines: 22

William Safire, a language columnist for the NY Times, wrote about this
correcting of peoples' grammar, etc, as the "wiseguy problem":

"Everyone who cares about the use of language is faced sooner or later
with this problem:  When the person you are talking [writing] to makes a
mistake in grammar, or pronounces [or spells] a word mistakenly, do you
interrupt with a correction?  Or would such a correction be seen as a
put-down, the action of a wiseguy?  Or would failure to correct be taken as
agreement with the mistake?

"...Correcting a stranger's English is impolite at best, cruel at worst.
It's being a wiseguy, who is the sort of linguistic show-off who has to
tell you that 'wiseguy' and 'wisenheimer' were preceded by 'wiseacre,'
derived from the Dutch word 'wijssegger,' or 'soothsayer.'  As for the
person taking pen [or keyboard] in hand at this moment to point out that
Webster's  New World Dictionary writes 'wiseguy' as two words -- you
know what you are."  [from his book "On Language"] [additions mine]

'Nuff said?

Gordon Moffett (I care about the use of language, but not enough to offend
people)