[Glastonbury] ibm advert

[tim hall]

On Thursday 09 October 2003 15:22, Martin WHEELER wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, Maurice Onmaplate wrote:
> > It would have more impact if it was written in prope
> > English.
>
> Hmmm.  Make that: 'proper', will you?
>
> > most unique - it's either unique or not, most unique
> > is meaningless.
>
> Agreed.  But with the current standards of literacy in British schools,
> what do you expect?  Kids are forced to read Microsoft capitalization on
> every screen (You Know, Where Every Freaking Word Is Capitalized);
> failing that, their friends' abysmal texting style.
>
> > "It's unprecedented integration."
>
> The consistent mis-spelling of 'its' as 'it's' where the genitive case
> is intended is so overwhelming as to be almost standard practice.
> ('Should of' and 'definately' are two others which most teachers can no
> longer be bothered to flag as appalling errors, either.)

I can also be pedantic about language, although I am also quite capable of 
getting it wrong. I think the critical issue for this list is one of 
communication. I think it can be appropriate to encourage each other to use 
the spell checker occasionally and to write stuff that makes sense. I would 
argue that English grammar, like the constitution, is unwritten and much more 
dependant on usage rather than text-book correctness.

I do draw the line at l337 h4X0r text type stuff, that definitely belongs to 
the d4r< 51d3 and we'll be having none of that here, thankyou :-)
I would also argue that trying to teach English Grammar is a thankless task, 
as there's no future in it. <discuss> Let's face it _all_ use of the 
apostrophe used to be considered bad grammar  - and the usage of certain 
words has changed so much over the centuries that current grammatical 
standards are more like they used to be than they are now.

Oh, by the way, it's 'capitalised'. :-)

I hope that clears it all up then.

cheers

tim hall