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Dec. 14, 2006 I try to write all my articles in perfect English, though I admit to occasional typographical errors. I look up words in the dictionary time and time again just to make sure I am using them in precisely the right way. You can call this useless perfectionism if you like, but all the great publishing houses in the country, whether they specialize in encyclopedias, textbooks, novels, newspapers or magazines, share my sentiments. They spend millions of dollars annually to pay proofreaders and editors to check their texts thoroughly, so I assume that this is more than a mere idiosyncrasy on their part. Even a publication like the New York Times, the
so-called “newspaper of record” in the US , is guilty of occasion little blunders. But, on the whole, their grammar and style are 99.99% perfect. They make sure that they are. First of all, errors can create misunderstandings. If you use the wrong word, you may distort the meaning you intended. Secondly, a discriminating reader, who knows better, will be reluctant to accept the ideas of an author who makes a lot of grammatical mistakes. He will look down on him with a measure of contempt or suspicion, as if
perhaps he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Naturally, a prestigious newspaper wants to be held in the highest regard, and that’s part of the reason they have for their high standards. I realize that Useless-Knowledge.Com is not competing with the New York Times yet, but I personally feel that it looks bad to have semi-literate writers featured regularly. Do you remember Dennis Siluk? This was a man who made 50 to 100 grammatical mistakes per article. In checking around online about a year ago, I saw several comments on other websites written by people who took Siluk to task for his atrocious grammar. If such people provide a link to
UK , it reflects on the website as a whole and on its contributors. Obscene words do not create a very good impression either, even if a vowel is replaced with an ellipsis, or an abbreviation is used. I stopped reading at least two writers on this website because of their objectionable language. I simply don’t care what they have to say. If they can’t put it in intelligible English, without a lot of disgusting phraseology, I’m just not interested. Bob Caterino left the website because his grammar had been criticized once too often, he said. As a parting shot, he
mentioned something about a radio show he hosts and a book he wrote, as if to show that he was too great to stand any criticism from such a secondary website. To my way of thinking, this is tantamount to a childish tantrum. The correct approach for him would have been to try to learn a little and improve his English. Maybe he wrote “from the heart”, but I wasn’t impressed.
------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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