Letter from Frank Sniveley
Syntax -April 2006 -Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
The recent minor problems with spelling and grammar in Colorado Central have caused me to think a bit about the subject. The thoughts have jelled enough for me to put them into words, which I now share with the world (or at least that enlightened and superior subset of the world which consists of Colorado Central readers).
Almost anyone who does some writing — even Electronic Systems Engineers such as I — becomes aware that it is almost impossible to catch all the errors in spelling and usage that creep into a manuscript. Even if we have a larger circle of assistants than Ed and Martha on hand, misteaks can crepe into what we write.1
Actually, the use of the computer has been beneficial, as far as I can see. To be sure, the spell checker, if trusted too much, will introduce errors; to slightly paraphrase a famous couplet:
“How do I no? The speller tolled me sew.”
I guess that I am one of your few correspondents who uses footnotes for something more than dry citations. And I can’t help myself, there is a limerick on that subject; to introduce some more deliberate mis-spellings:
A wonderful thing is the ibid
Makes passages flat and insibid.
It sits in its cage At the foot of the page
To tell where the passage was cribid.”2
I have found that if I read a block of text backwards, I am more likely to catch spelling errors, simply because my mind doesn’t automatically insert what should have appeared in that particular place. It seems to work, after a fashion, even with spell checker mistakes, simply because the context is likely to be bizarre in that case. Of course reading backwards doesn’t do anything for singular vs. plural, or subject-verb disagreement or punctuation. There is no substitute for an obsessive proofreader, much as such people may be a pain in other situations.
Another, somewhat related, subject is vocabulary. With my technical background, I tend to adopt two rather different styles, depending on the context.
The set of words used for an Instruction Manual or for a Test Plan needs to be as simple as possible, as long as the information gets across. A person who is trying to check out or fix something — or who is adjusting test apparatus to apply a specific stimulus — should NEVER be forced to figure out what is meant by a bunch of highfalutin words. I can empathize with that; if we get a new microwave oven or a video disk player, or a “some assembly required” piece of furniture, the last thing I want to see is incomprehensible language.
But a wee streak of perversity comes out when I am discussing some complex subject. I have to admit that I took a bit of pleasure in writing about “deep” subjects with a style that caused a bit of mind stretching among my readers, who were scientists and engineers. I recall feeling a certain pleasure on one occasion when I overheard an engineer saying, “Where’s the Dictionary? I’m trying to read one of Frank Snively’s reports.” And I got a lot more pleasure later when I heard him using some of my phraseology correctly — it meant that he’d understood what I was saying.
I can understand that a publication such as Colorado Central needs to occupy the middle ground, and adopt what I’d call “reportorial” style, being straightforward (always surprisingly difficult), but not being hesitant to use an unfamiliar word if that is the best way to say something. I’m getting too old to change my own habits of speech and writing, much as I admire the way you do it.
Well, I can adjust a bit to the times, I guess, I have finally come to accept that the word “data” can be used as singular, though I still have some regrets.
Frank Snively
Buena Vista
1) Note that the two immediately preceding errors were introduced deliberately; I can’t vouch that the rest of this letter will be error-free.
2) That one stuck in my mind. I didn’t compose the limerick, of course, but I have no idea where I saw it first.
