Thank you. Nice to know that there is at least one other person 
howling from the lonely cliff edge.

Phil

>Without any intention to single out one individual, I'd like to 
>address a worsening issue regarding electronic communication.  This 
>is not a diatribe about "artistic license", the difficulties of 
>English as a second language, regional differences in slang or 
>syntax or the subtleties of hanging participles.  What I would like 
>to see is less casual and more appropriate use of the fundamentals 
>of English by those who should know better.
>
>Professional communications should reflect not only the expertise of 
>the individual, but their intellectual acuity as well.  We are not 
>Twittering each other, so we should be writing in complete sentences 
>with proper capitalization and punctuation.  While I may be a 
>Luddite in this regard, doesn't it take more effort to purposely 
>write without these attributes than with them, as all our years of 
>formal training would dictate?
>
>We have enough trouble with the bastardization of the current 
>lexicon.  For instance, when was the last time you "migrated" a 
>chair from one room to another, or you asked yourself what 
>"impacted" your decision to buy a particular car?  In my opinion we 
>should eschew the tendency to accept trendy but lazy language and 
>work to maintain some semblance discipline, if only to slow the 
>progression toward the use of "like" three to five times in every 
>sentence.  (Is that just in America, or has this disheartening trend 
>spread to other English speaking countries?)
>
>I would propose that a given writing or language style should be 
>appropriate for the forum in which it is used.  In the case of this 
>forum, where intelligent and highly educated scientists predominate, 
>we should stick to that level of discourse.
>
>Rantingly yours,
>Carl
>
>Carl A. Boswell, Ph.D.
>Molecular and Cellular Biology
>University of Arizona
>520-954-7053
>FAX 520-621-3709

-- 
Philip Oshel
Microscopy Facility Supervisor
Biology Department
024C Brooks Hall
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
(989) 774-3576