Re: OT-ish: txt - Could it replace Standard Written English?

En réponse à John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

>
> When I am tutoring writers, I say "Get it on paper, never mind if it's
> right!"
> This does not mean that I think it's reasonable to submit a paper full
> of
> spelling or other mechanics errors.  But one can fix those last, or
> even
> hire someone else to fix them.  They aren't about *thinking* clearly.
>
In my experience, somebody who has no idea of grammar cannot think clearly *on
paper*. Whether you like it or not, the written language and the spoken
language *cannot* be alike. They are two different media that don't mix well.
You may be very good at thinking when *speaking*, but if you have no idea of
grammar and spelling, you just can't think right when *writing*. I've been
helping enough students to know that for sure.

>
> They aren't ludicrous.  Students who get back a four page paper with
> 100
> red marks on it are likely to give up and throw the thing in the trash
> rather
> than try again.
That's only because they aren't taught the true value of a correction, not
because correcting is bad per se. Anyway, in all my experience, I've never seen
such a thing happen. People who rather stop trying because they got corrected
rather than try again are people who would never have carried on anyway.

  "Correcting" -- in the sense "providing corrections
> or
> indications thereof" -- may indeed inhibit writing.
>
Pure nonsense. Anybody who says that has given up teaching. The problem here is
that those details like spelling and grammar should have been taken care of
long before people start to write creatively. Now call me a prescriptivist if
you like, but in my experience I've never met anyone who wrote meaningful
things without knowing grammar and spelling. A person with 100 red marks on 4
pages won't have written anything of any value anyway (even for themself), even
if we concentrate only on the contents.

The quality of the "details", as you say, often reflects the quality of the
contents. I have enough experience as a grader and a jury in literary contests
to know that.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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