Corpora: sloppiness maybe but more literate yes

[Bruce Lambert]

>At 12:36 PM 4/10/01 -0400, Ken Litkowski wrote:
>"becoming more literate"  I doubt it.  While there may be exposure to
>more ideas, the hastiness and sloppiness of email detracts from the
>intellectual process.

E-mail is a less formal genre than letters. I doubt even the most
enthusiastic letter writer would ever have written the equivalent of the 20
or more messages I routinely write each day. I sure am glad I don't have to
carefully proofread each one.

Of course we should strive to be careful, to spell-check (note my
misspelling of Chomsky's name recently!), and to proofread for content, but
getting too picky about spelling, grammar, and usage in email is only
marginally more polite in my book than correcting grammatical errors
in  ordinary conversation (a habit which is not at all polite). In terms of
its generic conventions, e-mail exists in a nether world between oral and
written discourse. I like it like that.

>(I often ask specific questions which are
>totally ignored).

This happens to all of us, and I think it's a mistake to think it's the
result of readers' sloppiness or inattention. There are many other (more
plausible) reasons people might not answer your specific questions:

1. They don't know the answer.
2. They don't have time to answer.
3. They think someone else will answer and they don't want to be redundant.
4. They are not interested enough in the issue to respond.
5. They think you could do a web search on your own and get the answer.
6. It's a FAQ.

etc.

-bruce