Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!gegeweb.org!newsfeed.kamp.net!newsfeed.kamp.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: blmblm@myrealbox.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: OT language stuff (was Re: Class.forName().newInstance() vs new) Date: 20 Jun 2011 19:19:56 GMT Organization: None Lines: 53 Message-ID: <969kqsFjduU5@mid.individual.net> References: X-Trace: individual.net WQEPmqbKoPY8bVo9+w56Egv7F1GK/5ZeMcA0Dn8qfcyZaxnP4m X-Orig-Path: not-for-mail Cancel-Lock: sha1:0kdt8IhDFJf03y6j5CV/QQ2Qd/Y= X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.java.programmer:5428 In article , Arved Sandstrom wrote: [ snip ] > I've been trying for years to hit the right balance in blog articles, > design documents, RFP responses, presentations, tutorials, teaching > handouts, Usenet posts and Web forum questions, and also my own writing > for pleasure (this latter itself being of many different types). All I > know for sure is that I dislike (in varying degrees) the following: [ snip lots of interesting digression ] > 2) incorrect spelling, _particularly_ when it's obvious that it's not a > typo. Examples: "she poured over her material", "that was a breech of > security", and "the shed wreaked of gasoline". *Oh* yes. EIther mistakes of this kind have become more common in recent years -- *even in prose that one would think had been reviewed by someone with copyediting experience* -- or I'm noticing them more. > I blame lack of reading > for this problem; it's not possible to make these mistakes (or for that > matter, to be a bad speller, period) if you read voraciously. You think? I sometimes wonder if some people's brains are wired to care about spelling, and others' aren't. I'm in the former group, and indeed find that unless I know how a word is spelled it's somehow not real to me. I don't have that problem with words whose spelling I know but whose pronunciation I'm unsure of. I wonder, though, whether there are people for whom exactly the reverse is true. I also wonder whether reading voraciously even helps, given that more and more one can't rely on published prose to be correct. Sigh. [ snip ] > The best measure of this detailed design document that I produced is > that, in marked contrast to the usual design docs that floated around > that office, the higher up the food chain you went with it, the less > people were able to understand it. "Less" or "fewer"? (You probably do mean "less", but the widespread practice of using the former to mean the latter means that one can't really be sure, maybe.) [ snip ] -- B. L. Massingill ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.