LINGUIST 30Q

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Jun 14, 2004, at 11:33 AM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

> Wow, this gives me heart to object to the writing on our university
> website's instructions to international applicants.  It includes
> run-ons,
> fragments, missing commas, oversupplied commas, etc.--all of which
> native
> readers could disentangle but nonnatives could get, well, tangled up
> in.  I
> WILL complain now, though I'm dealing, I'm sure, with low-level page
> writers who may not even understand what I'm complaining about.

[SS] in my story is in fact a drastically over-educated person for the
job: a berkeley ph.d. in indonesian literature!  (i'm not making this
up.)  so it's no surprise i got such a thoughtful response.  even an
invitation to take me out for a cup of coffee.

i have had less pleasant resolutions to my resistance to pig-ignorant
editing.  for instance, several blood-soaked battles with editors who
refused to countenance "since" and "while" in logical, rather than
temporal, uses.  (if i remember correctly, the American Psychological
Association manual still stickles on this point.)

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), noting that he did in fact change
many people's  attitudes in courses this spring -- but it took ten
weeks, with a long slow build-up; also noting that he's watching the
encore bit to eddie izzard's Dress To Kill, which has a lot of very
funny (also profane) stuff about language in it