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RE: Priorities

Subject: RE: Priorities
From: Jean Hollis Weber <jean -at- jeanweber -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 21:11:33 +1000


Actually, John, none of the items on your list are points of grammar, though I'm sure you could come up with similar items that _are_ grammar issues.

I completely agree* with the point you're making (in this and previous notes), but I suspect that your use of the term "grammar" for issues of usage, spelling, or presentation may confuse the issue for those who think of grammar in a more specific way -- where ungrammatical sentences are far more likely to be ambiguous, confusing, or incomprehensible.

* See my article "Relevant and irrelevant grammar rules" at http://www.jeanweber.com/about/grammar2.htm in which I included a bunch of stuff that isn't really grammar (Geoff Hart pointed this out to me), and I should definitely know better!

Regards, Jean
Jean Hollis Weber
jean -at- jeanweber -dot- com
The Technical Editors' Eyrie http://www.jeanweber.com/


John Posada wrote:

I'm talking about obsession over grammar from the standpoint of grammar.

Things like:

- spending a precious hour obsessing on whether a sentence should use
"which" or "that"...

- spending 30 minutes to rewrite a paragraph so that it doesn't have only
one bullet after it...

- spending all morning running a spell-check for the 3rd time on a 600
page/30 chapter FM book looking for less than 5 new misspellings in 600
pages...

- taking even 3 minutes to worry about whether I'll hurt someone's feelings
if I markup someone's grammar with a red pen rather than a green pen.


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