[plug] [OT] Nit-Picking

[Ben Jensz]

But if I wanted to be nit-picky in reference to "proper" sentence 
construction using the english language, I could point out the lack of 
capital letters in your below posting :).

But in normal posting, I don't think there would be a real need to point 
that out to you.  If someone is just being plain lazy with their english 
skills and as such make a posting that is hard to read and/or understand 
(e.g posting one continuous 300 word block of text without any 
punctuation, paragraphing and full of grammatical errors that make the 
gist of the posting hard to understand), then yes it may be an issue.  
But if you can understand what the person is asking and/or the point 
they are trying to get across - does a couple of spelling or grammatical 
errors really matter and need to be mentioned?

There could be the argument in respect of the increasing trend towards 
the usage of broken and/or incorrect usage of the english language, but 
this is an opinion related argument and is definitely off-topic list 
material :).

But yes, I agree that the majority of James' postings to this list are 
useful, on-topic and constructive, and I certainly don't want to 
discourage him from making those contributions. :)


/ Ben


Jeffrey Lim wrote:

>if i may, to be fair to James, i think a certain amount of nit-picking
>about the English language is needed and in well order. While some of
>the other stuff that u mentioned ("rubbish Microsoft (without any
>direct link to Linux/OSS), hand out gmail invites or anything else not
>directly related to Linux/OSS in general") is not, talking about the
>English language is a bit like talking about the nuances of protocols.
>We all have to make sure that we stick to at least some basic proper
>rules dont we? if not, how could we carry on with the actual business
>of _actually talking about Linux/OSS itself_?
>
>a certain amount is necessary - for the sake of proper communication
>for us all. Let's not forget the good in James' posts as well.
>
>no flames pls - or i will have to learn how to juggle flaming balls now.
>
>-jf
>