Re: Typ o sin Rsms

["Wayne J. Douglass" <wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM>]

At 04:58 PM 2/27/97 PST, Robert Plamondon wrote:
>
>Even spelling is not a basic writing skill.  There are good writers who
>can't spell consistently (Shakespeare leaps immediately to mind).  In
>fact, rigid spelling rules are a relatively new invention.  Much of the
>world's great literature predates this newfangled concept.  Composition
>is the central skill -- word choice and (to a lesser extent) punctuation --
>with spelling being distinctly secondary.  Heck, in many languages it's
>not even an issue, since the spelling rules are so straightforward that
>there's little chance to screw up.
>
Shakespeare is not the best example because English orthography was nowhere
near standardized in the Renaissance. As someone who has examined English
plays from the period, I can testify to the charm of seeing the same word
spelled four different ways *on the same page.* F. Scott Fitzgerald, to
choose someone closer to our time, was a notoriously bad speller - and he
went to Princeton!

And remember Marshall McLuhan's dictum: "Nobody made a grammatical error in
a preliterate society."

--Wayne Douglass

=========================================================
Verity, Inc.                 Email: wayned -at- verity -dot- com
894 Ross Drive           Telephone: 408-542-2139
Sunnyvale, CA 94089      Facsimile: 408-542-2040
Connecting People with Information: http://www.verity.com
=========================================================

 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html