Grammar on the Digest (No Alfa content; probably too long)

["Trimble" <trimblci@domain.elided>]

At last! A subject upon which this technopeasant lurker might be qualified
to comment.
     I am an editor at a small daily newspaper,and a good part of my job
consists of buffing a literary sheen onto accounts of the latest sewer
commission meeting or three-car pile-up (they often are very similar).
     Most of my reporters are youngsters just out of college, and while
they're smart as a crateful of whips, their inability to make an English
sentence do their bidding is disheartening.
     One young reporter, writing of a coming celebration to celebrate the
town's bicentennial, reported that many of the founder's ancestors would
attend. When I commented that this was either a syntactical error of grave
proportions or a lot bigger story than we had first imagined, my reporter
was completely flummoxed; she had no idea she had made an error, and even
defended her usage.
     Another wrote the word "hubbub" as two words. Hub bub. (I almost didn't
change that one; I found it charming in a side-pocket sort of way.)
     Perhaps because I spend most of my waking hours rescuing young writers
from grammatical cul de sacs, I tend to have something of a
live-and-let-live attitude when I'm off duty screening the digest.
     I must admit to some surprise and schoolmarmish chagrin at my first
reading of a posting by the esteemed Mr. seed-in, but I finally came to the
conclusion that the digest was the elecronic metaphor for the neighborhood
bar where Alfa nuts gather, and cavils about standard English usage would be
about as superfluous as a truffle on a perfectly good chili dog.
     There certainly is room for a serious discussion on where this new
cyberspeak is leading the English language, and Doug (dug?) and I probably
would be on opposite sides of that debate. But that's a subject for another
forum, not the digest.
     As for John H's plea for clear and understandable posts; I'm with him
all the way.


Mike Trimble
Denton, Texas
'89 Spider Veloce

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