blake murphy wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Aug 2007 12:39:18 -0400, Peter A >
> wrote:
>
>>In article >,
says...
>>> > Thanks for your thoughtful post, you make a good point. I am a writer by
>>> > trade and I suppose that grammar is more important to me than it is to
>>> > 99.9% of people.
>>> >
>>> > Even so, I am surprised by how resistant most people are to learning
>>> > anything. I guess that's just human nature and I should learn to deal
>>> > with it.
>>> > --
>>> > Peter Aitken
>>>
>>> And thank you, Peter, for your thoughtful reply. It seems that both of us
>>> put great value in grammar. Yes, you probably should learn to deal with its
>>> misuse, although I can assure you it's not easy!
>>>
>>> Felice
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I find bad grammar a lot easier to take in spoken English. When you are
>>speaking with someone you have tone of voice, phrasing, facial
>>expression, and body language to help get the meaning across. When
>>things are written, it's a lot harder. There are none of these helpers
>>so you have to rely 100% on the words (although the "smiley face" and
>>other emoticons can help).
>
> your claims to being any kind of writer at all are demolished by your
> advocating emoticons. jaysus.

If not overdone, they can be a somewhat useful replacement for the
visual cues we get in face-to-face communication and lose here. One
example of "overdone" is having them in one's sig so every post ends
with one. Automatic similes like that are meaningless.


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