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From: Parker.es@Xerox.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Credibility
Message-ID: <267@sri-arpa.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 11-Jun-85 16:12:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.267
Posted: Tue Jun 11 16:12:58 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Jun-85 06:01:59 EDT
Lines: 35

From:  James Parker <Parker.es@Xerox.ARPA>


i for one have a terrible time spelling - but that didn't keep me from
graduating with honors in math.  for me, math makes sense but spelling
in english is a black art apparently understood only by english
professors.

Flame On

why Why WHY can't we switch to spelling everything phonetically ???
it's so simple.  there ARE cultures that do this.  of course, we can't
seem to go metric either after more than 180 years.

Flame Off

i had a professor who got stuck trying to spell something on the
blackboard in class one day - finally he said "Oh hell, scientists
aren't supposed to know how to spell anyway" and went on with the
discussion.

my science professors were liberal about spelling - but we caught hell
for muddled or erronous thinking.  interestingly, my humanities
professors were the other way around - muddled and/or erronous thinking
was ok if properly spelled and punctuated.

another thing that i've learned as i got older:
 1) competence in one field does NOT imply competence in another field
 2) incompetence in one field does NOT imply incompetence in another
field

look around - you'll see numerous examples of people who are very
competent at several things and incompetent at many other things.

James