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From: gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Writing, programming, music and mechanics
Message-ID: <1452@ihuxn.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Jun-86 17:30:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxn.1452
Posted: Wed Jun 18 17:30:08 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Jun-86 01:57:29 EDT
References: <2671@sdcc6.UUCP> <1445@ihuxn.UUCP> <2679@sdcc6.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 66

--
> >The quality of writing on the net is somewhere between poor and
> >pathetic.  It is replete with errors in spelling and grammar.
> >Most computer professionals (in my experience) cannot write their
> >way out of a paper bag.  But then, most never learned how.
> >What you stand in awe of is indeed the work of a few articulate
> >posters.  Or else you yourself cannot recognize bad prose.
 
> I have long thought that ideas were the most important part of
> writing.  As long as the grammar and punctuation are not so bad that
> they get in the way of the ideas, I am willing to over look them. 

And I'll overlook (one word) them too.  Unfortunately, writing and
thinking are highly correlated.  You speak of ideas as if they were
soldiers in the mine field of grammar.  Effective writing is not a
matter of acceptable battlefield casualties.  If you can't write it
right, you can't think it right.

> >"Recontextualize"?  
>             ...It is this new context for writing, and the social
> de-stratification that can take place, provided the other readers
> refrain from cheep-shot criticism, that we term "recontextualization".

And we sound oh-so-erudite.  But English doesn't let us mean anything
by it.  We might as well "precontextualize" or, since it looks much
niftier, "hypercontextualize".  Say, why don't we just call a spade a
spade?  Try "computerize", "automate", or my favorite, "type".  By
the way, what is this stratification problem that only computers can
solve?

> >"Freshpersons"?  
> Non gender-specific phraseology.

Yes, I know you're not a sexist.  But you are silly.

> >"Limited basic skills"?  
> Yes, like the grammar and punctuation you mention.

"Limited skills" would have been sufficient.  "Limited basic skills"
sounds more important, though.  And why stop there?  Why not "limited
underdeveloped basic skills".

> >you *teach* writing?  That's not a good sign.
> No, I don't *teach* writing.  What I do is to use the
> recontextualizing possibilities of Unix to provide a forum for the
> voices of students that otherwise would not be heard and hope that
> this convinces them to continue to write.  Does anyone really teach
> writing? Or do they teach punctuation, grammar and analysis (the last
> being the most important)

> bjones@sdcsvax.ARPA

You list those subjects (punctuation and grammar) as if they were
tools of oppression.  But they are actually tools of liberation.
A person who can write clearly can think clearly.  And a person who
can think clearly is dangerous.  "Recontexualizing possibilities"
is pure fog.  If Churchill had used language like that, we might
all be speaking German.  You are right about one thing, of course:
No, you *don't* teach writing.
-- 
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