Off of and other horrors

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> 

> APRIL

> > I won't speak for anyone but myself, but when I hear someone speak

> > improperly, my opinion of that person's intelligence and education

level,

> > and thus their subsequent credibility, drops.  It may not be fair, or

> > always accurate, but, in general, it seems to be fairly predictive of

> > intelligence and education.  And I just can't take someone seriously if

> > they can't speak (reasonably) properly, although the odd "irregardless"

> > isn't that big of a deal.

> > 

> > April

> 

> KOLLER

> Yeah, but were not talking about backwood illiterates here.  "I aint got

> no.."/"I don't read no good" VS. a missing punctuation here and missing

> comma there, etc. etc.  If someone lowers their opinion of me because I

> may not be grammatically "correct", well thats too bad.


I accept that internet communications are sometimes written and posted too
quickly to correct every error - I often see something I missed in my
writings only AFTER it gets posted - but, honestly, how difficult is it to
put an apostrophe in-between the "t" and the "s"?  I'm also not that
critical with such things as colons vs. semicolons, or the use of dashes
(which I like, but I think are mostly not allowed.  Farrell?).

If, however, you were writing something more formal (a report, say),  I
WOULD consider it less if it contained a lot of simple spelling and
punctuation errors.  

> 

> I hated grammar when I was in school becuase it was restrictive.  Every

> time I wrote, I concentrated so much on correct grammar, that the

> content suffered.  In fact, even as I type now, my attention is divided

> between grammar and content more than I would like (because of this

> topic!).


FWIW, I never liked the poems of e.e. cummings, because the spelling and
punctuation bothered me so much.  Call me anal if you like - we all have
our pet peeves.


> 

> If people are unable to understand what I am saying, then I will begin

> to examine my methods of communicating.

> 

>

No, dear.  We understand you just fine!  And you're not even close to the
level of illiteracy I'm having to get used to in my present locale.

April

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