Re: [tlug] Paul Graham's Disagreement Hierarchy

["Niels Kobschaetzki" <n.kobschaetzki@example.com>]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 3:28 PM, SL Baur <steve@example.com> wrote:
> On 3/31/08, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:
>

<snip flaming>

>  The things I have noticed from decades of watching Usenet and later the
>  web, is that English skills are in general declining.  That a "high" level of
>  education is no guarantee of any kind of writing skill whatsoever.  That
>  non-native English speakers can often be the most literate in English,
>  especially those of non-UK European background.

I think that it is no wonder that it occurs to you that English skills
are declining by watching Usenet. In the beginning most users where
academics and with time it changed because nearly everyone has
internet access and therefore a decline was foreseeable.

>  Editors are no guarantee for good copy, and you are not a True Reader
>  if you do not have dead tree books in your possession with typographical
>  errors, spelling and grammatical errors, etc.

I think that the problem is that a) a lot of publishers do not have as
many editors as they did and b) that the publishers try to put out
more and more stuff and that the low count of editors has to deal in
less time with more books.

Niels