Klarinet Archive - Posting 001162.txt from 2002/06

From: Jeremy A Schiffer <schiffer@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] Illiteratates - And question
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 23:00:35 -0400

since this thread was clearly aimed at me...

my decision to often type without capital letters is not due to the
popularity of chat rooms and instant messaging. i have been using the
internet since before there was a world wide web and im'ing, and long,
long before many of the members of this list (regardless of their age)
knew what modems were. heck, i remember when 1200 baud was speedy and when
usenet hadn't yet been destroyed by the aol invasion. also, i hate instant
messaging and don't use chat rooms, but that's neither here nor there.

mr. nibbelin, if you actually read my words, you'd notice that i'm
as articulate as anyone else on this list - and moreso than many. i
write in complete sentences and rarely have spelling mistakes or
grammatical errors in my prose. perhaps that is really what annoys you
most? my lack of capitalizing is merely a personal preference based on
speed. my time is precious, and i don't wish to waste it. if i try typing
with capital letters, i have discovered that it increases my error rate
substantially; ergo, i have made a calculated decision to omit capital
letters in order to save time. as you know well, typing ability isn't the
ultimate determinant of intelligence, writing ability, cogency, or any
other meaningful measure aside from typing ability itself.

i take great pride in my writing, and can write business memos (i've
worked in public accounting (not for arthur andersen, thank god)) as well
as academic research papers (some, over 40 pages in length involving 8
months of research and writing). if you have substantive issues with my
writing or my ideas, i'd be happy to address them here or privately. But,
as far as i can tell, instead of choosing to engage me intellectually you
just picked up on one, basically irrelevant, detail about my writing which
you could use to your advantage, and ran with that in a public forum.
personally, i consider that distasteful, but it's your choice as to your
methods of discourse.

besides, when it comes to anything other than email, ms word automatically
capitalizes the first word in a sentence. unix text editors, on the other
hand, don't. (well, i suppose you could program emacs to do it, but i'm
not that skilled...)

but you need not worry about my success in life. i gave up a professional
career in which i would have been guaranteed near million dollar salaries
by age 35 because it didn't keep me intellectually engaged or allow for
the scheduling freedom to perform and rehearse with musical groups. i'll
probably attend law school in the next few years, in order to work in the
international security and human rights field, but in the meantime, i have
a well paying job where 55,000 people rely on my expertise to keep our
network free of virus problems and copyrighted materials.

but i appreciate your concerns.

-jeremy

--------------------
Robyn Brown wrote:

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the emphasis in Mr.
Nibbelin's letter of complaint was on the complete lack of capitalization
in some of the recent postings on this list. This is a style of writing
that has become very common lately with the increased popularity of
instant
messages and chat rooms. While in chat rooms there is usually no
punctuation or capitalization to facilitate a rapid exchange of comments,
to see this trend make its way into letter writing is an example of
laziness.

and

On Sun, 30 Jun 2002, Gene Nibbelin wrote:

> Callahan -
>
> Touché on the misspelling. What it proves is that my language knowledge
> exceeds my typing ability.
>
> I know that this isn't a language List but when I see you American
> youngsters disregarding the rules of the written English language, it upsets
> me because I know how important the art of writing is to ones success in
> life. In my business career I discarded many resumes after reading only
> about half of the cover letter because the poor writing immediately told me
> that they were not educated enough to qualify for the job opening that we
> had.
>
> The ability to write well and communicate well is very important for success
> in life. When someone reads what you have written, they learn a great deal
> about you. Write well and you create a good impression. Write poorly and
> you create a poor impression. It is that simple.
>
> Regards,
>
> Gene Nibbelin

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