Re: The 'user' in User Manual

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

This might just turn this thread into a bona fide flame war...

Most of the best writers I have ever managed could not have
enumerated the terminology of "proper grammar" or the
academic concepts behind it if their lives depended on it.  
Their professional training was not in grammar or English, 
but in fields such as engineering, physics or biology, or 
from hands-on training and experience in working with 
products in the field.  Their writing abilities were primarily 
the result of having had the proper *use* of grammar and 
good composition rules drummed into them on flash cards
during their formative years in the pre-whole-language era 
of American schooling, and while they wrote well, most of 
them had not diagrammed a sentence since before the onset 
of puberty..

By contrast, some of the most annoying, pedantic, officious,
obstructive little PITA's I have ever known were editors with 
formal academic training in "proper grammar" who took an 
inordinate amount of pleasure in using all manner of English
texts and style guides as clubs to beat people over their heads 
with, possibly as punishment for having had the audacity to be 
making more money with words than they were.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jason Lee-Bakke" <jlbdca -at- gmail -dot- com>